What will the future be?
I don’t know if I am a hoarder or a pack-rat. When it comes to tech journals, I just can’t seem to throw them away. Recently I have been going back through my piles to see what we thought the future held 10-15 years ago. It’s really interesting to see what ideas became reality and others that faded away.
1998 was an interesting year where third party tools for Visual Basic and other languages were becoming popular as VB components or OLE components. Java was taking the world by storm. SOAP was something you didn’t want to pick up in the shower in jail.
With the help of many software giants, Agile Software Lifecycle techniques began to be understood. UML became a popular method for documenting software. Software patterns were formalizing with many OO developers embracing the concepts.
Companies had wars over the Netscape browser vs. Internet Explorer. Companies were beginning to centralize their hardware assets once again using Citrix as a centralized CPU and very thin clients to communicate.
Google was a fledgling company indexing the world. Yahoo had customers. AOL was an active business. Amazon was a new phenomenon. Apple only made computers cherished by the few.
Times have changed to the point where companies like WalMart are threatened by…Amazon, Google, Ebay.
Credit Card companies such as Visa, Master Card and Discover are watching the big Giant platforms for their ability to handle cards, and the money to do it.
What about Apple and Google…they are making Phones. HP tries to make a touch pad computer and wraps up the package with a big loss in little more than 45 days because they can’t compete with Apple.
I don’t know the current acceptance rate. but Microsoft platforms are pushing all others by being good at packaging me-too product suites for software development or canned products with a compelling story. Is Dot Net really beginning to win over Java platforms?
Speaking of Java, SUN doesn’t even exist anymore. Microsoft is no longer the most profitable company in the world. Apple (remember when Microsoft tried to squash them) now fights for that title against Exxon Mobile.
I suppose those who make sense of this kind of history are making money. I’m just getting a good laugh and a nice trip down memory lane.
Do you think you know what the next ten years hold? Sends us your thoughts in an email to btaylor@sswug.org.
Cheers,
Ben
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