Opinion: A noughty sendoff

This is my first column for the new decade, or the first one for the last year of the old decade, depending on whether you count the start of the decade as 2010 or 2011 and I'm not going to get into that argument because no-one ever wins it. This is the first year this century that doesn't start with two-thousand-oh-something, so that's what I'm going with.

Either way the time would seem ripe to look back on the decade just past and reflect on its highs and lows, its achievements and failures, the ideas that changed the world and the ones that didn't, the spectacular rises and the meteoric falls (that's right, I'm using "meteoric" correctly for once).

Perhaps the best way to do it would be in the form of a top-10 list or similar format.
If that's what you'd like, go read some other column - there have been plenty of those already from the "decade ends in 09" crowd, and the year ahead will see more of them from people who think the next decade starts in 2011. Good for them.

To me, this is a time for looking forward, not only to the year ahead, but indeed to the decade upon which we are about to embark (this year or next - I'm not taking sides). Where will the journey take us? Which companies will rise, which will fall, which technologies will fade like Betamax, and which will rise victorious like DVD? What will be the trends? How big will hard drives get? How fast the processors? What about home networks? Social media? Is print dead? If so what next? Will downloadable content completely replace TV? What undreamt-of miracles will 10 years hence be a part of our daily lives?

Don't look at me. I don't know. If I knew what the next big thing was going to be I'd go and invent it and get rich - there isn't as much money as you might think in the columnist game. I've had a reasonable eye for picking trends in the past: the collapse of MySpace, and that Blu-ray would win the HD format war even though Sony pretty much never wins format wars - but that's largely luck. I also didn't reckon the iPod was such a good idea, so that's a bit of a strike against my prognostication skills.

Really, why you're even reading this far is a bit of a mystery. I am, however, grateful that you have. It's an exciting thing, this technology industry we're in, and I enjoy trying to anticipate what's around the next corner. Truth be told I have as much fun being surprised as I do when things turn out exactly how I thought they would (Jerry Yang might not be happy things turned out the way I thought they would, but maybe he should have been reading CRN).
That's what the past decade has been - a never-ending series of surprises. My guess is the next decade will be too.

Matthew JC. Powell is mildly surprised that Apple hasn't trademarked the number 10 but reckons it will jump on anyone who puts an X in their product name. Share your predictions with mjcp@mac.com