Things to look forward to in 2010
So here we are in 2010! 2009 was good, but if your a big geek like me well let me assure you 2010 will not disappoint you, 2010 has got something for everyone in store.
The guys in Redmond have a lot in store for us Enterprise Consultants and for us who like our Gaming! Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 closed up a year for Microsoft that will now set a high precedent for the product’s it releases in 2010! Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2 were hailed as the Client and Server OS that we had been waiting for since the Gold editions of Vista and 2008 were first released; Both products where technologically advanced and far ahead of their predecessors (Windows XP and Windows Server 2003); But they had one major problem, they were slow and their ability to run on hardware their predecessors ran on was at times very limited; These are some of the main reasons large business’s really didn’t go down the 2008 route. Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2 have now set a standard that Customers and consumers now know that Microsoft can achieve if it puts its great minds to work.
So what else is coming out of the doors of MS in 2010 ?
For Businesses:
Exchange Server 2010
http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/2010/en/us/default.aspx
Released End November, but available now to Customers for 2010
Sharepoint Server 2010
http://sharepoint2010.microsoft.com/Pages/default.aspx
Releasing this year.
System Centre Configuration Manager R3 http://blogs.technet.com/systemcenter/archive/2009/09/08/announcing-system-center-configuration-manager-2007-r3.aspx
Releasing Q2 2010
Office 2010
http://www.microsoft.com/office/2010/en/default.aspx
TBA Speculation is March
Forefront Identity Manager 2010
http://www.microsoft.com/forefront/identitymanager/en/us/default.aspx
TBA Speculation is March
Forefront Endpoint Protection (Previously Codename Sterling)
http://blogs.technet.com/forefront/archive/2009/10/08/schedule-and-strategy-update-for-forefront-endpoint-protection.aspx
Releasing Q3/4 2010
Visual Studio 2010
http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/en-us/products/2010/default.mspx
TBA
Windows Mobile 7
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/12/windows-mobile-7-delayed-until-late-2010/
Releasing Q4 2010
For Gamers!
XBOX 360 Project Natal
http://www.xbox.com/en-US/live/projectnatal/
Releasing Q4 2010
A few years back Google changed the way we find information on the internet, it made searching for what you were looking for Simpler and gave you many sources for what you were looking for. It was simple, you entered your search term and what you were looking for was right there, you didn’t have to go through pages of possible results to try find what you were looking for.
As we now know google now does much more than search, it’s now made branches to RSS aggregator (Google Reader), Email (Google Mail ‘gmail’), Document repository (Google Docs) and Cloud solutions for business (Google Apps). Everything that google does enhances and simplifies how we do everyday tasks and is not dependant on your Client Platform.
Platforms however are where google is going, the last areas to “improve” are a Client Operating System (Chrome OS) and Mobile Device OS (Android).
How is google going to challenge what we do in 2010 ?
Chrome OS
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/introducing-google-chrome-os.html
Release TBA
Its not long ago that google officially announced that it had been working on its own OS, the guesses and speculation from top tech website had been stating so since probably the end of 2008. Recently gtgt.com got their hands on a VmWare image of an early build of Chrome OS so naturally i tried it out over here (to save you a trip i didn’t like it).
It will be one to watch for the user who uses their PC for Email, some social media, RSS, Web and youtube (basically most of the users today). The footprint on the PC is only the Core OS which is basically a HAL + Browser interface (as opposed to a full blown OS Gui). The beauty of Chrome OS is that documents, photos etc are all stored in your Google Doc’s/Picasa etc… so they don’t physically exist on the PC itself, so if the PC dies you can simply log into someone else or rebuild yours (Dumb terminals from Mainframe days anyone?).
There has been many Tweets and articles around the place to suggest that this will rival Microsoft’s Offering of Windows + Exchange + Other server Product in the Enterprise, i don’t see this happening for a number of reasons.
If you think about it for a second, with all these documents being stored somewhere centrally this then puts a reliance on Computing time etc to be based in a central datacenter that all clients connect in to, this means in addition to all your current email, file or sharepoint infrastructure you need a Client serving infrastructure to support some form of Portal and SSO mechanisms.
Having personally designed many types of Enterprise Desktop policies so that no data is stored locally it is difficult at times to manage centrally without a specialised management platform and one stop IT solution portal which is required, remember there is no Office, Open Office etc productivity suites locally.
So in a nutshell this is probably going to get a sizeable portion of the home light users, no word at the moment on what OEM’s are going to have Chrome Loaded as a factory OS as of yet!
Android
http://www.android.com/
Released, Large Penetration of Consumer Devices 2010!
Android has been quietly making some new friends with the likes of Motorola and HTC towards the end of 2009, Android is Google’s Mobile Device OS
Nexus One
http://www.google.com/phone/?locale=en_US&s7e=
Released Jan 2010