Successful execs will continue to be sacked in 2013

The end of 2012 was marked by some surprising high-profile departures in the tech industry.

Most notably, Scott Forstall of Apple and Stephen Sinofsky of Microsoft were both shown the door, despite apparently doing quite well in their respective jobs (the jury’s still out on Windows 8, but Forstall’s iOS project is the very definition of unqualified success).

Both Forstall and Sinofsky were mentioned in various quarters at various times as potential future CEOs of their companies. Another high-profile departure, Paul Ottelini of Intel, actually was CEO of his.

Now, you could argue that Ottelini (and the rest of Intel) kind of missed the tablet/smartphone trend, and that’s an oops, but Intel has been right on top of ultraportability since before that was even a word*.

Ottelini, Forstall and Sinofsky, to outsiders at least, all appeared to be doing quite well right up until the day their services were no longer required. This is a surprising new trend that may well continue into 2013, in which case I humbly offer my predictions for the year ahead.

Clearly, Android is doing far too well for itself, having gobbled up the lion’s share of the market for smartphone operating systems (even if it did so by having eleventy gajillion different and mutually incompatible versions on the market).

Still, success is success, and I think we can confidently predict that Larry Page will be fired from Google accordingly.

Of course, he may be saved by the fact Android still rates an asterisk in market share for tablets. But if a realistic iPad competitor emerges in 2013, the man’s doomed.

Speaking of which, Samsung’s present chief, Shin Jong-kyun, is looking awfully comfortable on that perch of his, outselling iPhones and all, defying Apple to sue all it wants because Samsung owns patents Apple needs to survive. If he continues to do well in 2013 (or, heaven forfend, beats Apple in court) he’d better start updating his CV.

Of course the other big thing the mobile device world is waiting for in 2013 is BlackBerry 10, and RIM’s renaissance. You have been waiting for that, right? Surely somebody has?

In this topsy-turvy world in which success is punished and failure is rewarded, RIM CEO Thorsten Heins is fairly safe in the big chair. At least until another company buys RIM out from under him – not for its products but for its patents and its networks.

Apple’s iMessage would be kind of cool if it worked the way BlackBerry Messenger does. And speaking of cloud services (yes, I was), I predict 2013 is the year we stop talking about cloud services. In the year ahead, cloud services will just become “services”.

Oh, and Scott Forstall and Stephen Sinofsky will co-found a killer startup.

*May still not actually be a word.