2003: Year of 64-Bit, Wireless and Convergence

Welcome to the first article in our end-of-year vision series. Over the next two weeks we'll be bringing you a variety of voices, both within and outside Ziff Davis Media, predicting what 2003 will bring. It's been a long, hard year in the technology industry, but according to this year's round-up of voices, we have much to look forward to.

So join us as we explore a range of ideas, thoughts and visions for what next year holds. We'll be rolling out a new piece every day until next year.

We kick this series off with PC Magazine Editor-In-Chief Michael Miller. If anyone knows the computer industry, it's Miller, who has run PC Magazine for more than ten years.

In computing, technology continues its inexorable march towards, faster, better and less expensive products, and 2003 should see more of the same:

Desktops, notebooks, and servers will all continue to get faster.

Applications will continue to do more things

Our computing devices will mushroom. We'll continue to acquire more devices that either are computers, have computers built-in, or attach to ones we already own.

Perhaps the biggest change is that 64-bit computing will get closer to the mainstream. Next year Intel will start pushing its Itanium chips into more servers, while AMD counters with its "Hammer" line of Opteron and Athlon64 chips for servers and desktops/workstations. I expect we will see a 64-bit port of Windows as well as the typical Linux ports in 2003. It will likely be several years, though, until the technology is really exploited.

On the graphics front, new solutions from companies such as Nvidia and ATI should allow game developers to create some amazing, more immersive games. But that seems to be the case every year.

Communications options will continue to improve as well. On the desktop, USB 2.0 has already become the new standard, and Firewire will be more common. The traditional 10/100 Ethernet port will move to 10/100/1000 (Gigabit Ethernet), particularly in the office. Gigabit Ethernet will get so cheap so fast, though, that it will undoubtedly show up in more home-oriented PCs too.

The wireless LAN world will continue to grow, but maybe not at the same pace as it did in 2002, due to security concerns and the transition from 802.11b to 802.11a or g. My money is on "g".

Still, it will grow, new security standards will eventually arrive, and corporations will catch on to the enormous benefits. On the other hand, despite some very cool devices such as the Treo, Danger, and Pocket PC phone, I expect wireless wide-area data solutions to take off more slowly. Why? Because in most cases, the software isn't quite good enough and the rate plans are too expensive for most people.

Convergence is one of those trends that seems to be coming every year, yet never completely gets here. I do NOT expect 2003 to be any different in that respect. Stand alone TVs, televisions, home theater systems, etc. will all still be doing quite fine a year from now. But we will see many more instances of convergence – as computers take on more and more functions of home entertainment systems.

In that regard, products like ATI's All-Wonder Radeon 9700 card and the Windows Media Center edition are harbingers of things to come. HP was first with a Windows Media Center machine, but I expect you'll see it (or a later version) in a lot of machines this year. I use my PC for digital photos, music, and some video – and we need better ways of managing all of this. I expect to see new software and new devices that help distribute these files among your PCs and home entertainment devices.

Along with these three main trends, I expect we'll see some real progress in web services in 2003. Microsoft, IBM, Sun, and BEA will all push towards "applications platforms" that connect applications together more easily than ever (but still not as well as you'd like). Some web-based applications, such as Salesforce.com and NetLedger, are already quite good; the push toward web services will only make them more useful.

I expect security concerns to remain high on the list of both personal and business priorities, likely with more concerns about "identity" and privacy. Microsoft's Palladium and Intel's LaGrande initiatives should get more attention as will the Liberty Alliance and Passport.

Spam concerns are reaching a crisis level – a year from now, it wouldn't surprise me if most of us had some sort of filter on our e-mail to help reduce it.

Finally, we will see some really cool new client applications – after a long period where not much was new. I've seen a bunch of great new Tablet PC applications, and a few new information organizers as well – and more are on the way.

In short, it will be a lot of fun!

Copyright © 2004 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. Originally appearing in ExtremeTech.