2010: e-books, cloud computing and a vibrant cellular market   |  February 12, 2010  

Welcome to Backbone’s annual predictions issue, one of my favourites every year. It’s always interesting—and potentially very useful—to ask the industry’s leading experts what they think is coming in the next 12 months.

And it’s also an opportunity for me to add my prognostications, which I have done below for three predictions from our cover story.

E-book readers unite I have been a fan of electronic books for years, writing about them first here in 2004. That’s why the following Amazon press release headline caught my attention: “On Christmas Day, for the First Time Ever, Customers Purchased More Kindle Books Than Physical Books.”

The statement is true, no doubt, but it’s also a bit of a cheat. Two things happened on Christmas Day: physical stores were closed, so book buyers could only order online; and lots of people unwrapped new—and empty—Amazon Kindle e-book readers.

But those of us who tout the benefits of e-books (price, convenience, reduced environmental and shelf-space impact) will take this win. It’s clear that e-books are catching on, driven largely by the availability of high-quality reading devices such as the Kindle, the Nook, the iPhone and Apple’s upcoming tablet. Prediction: This is the year e-books truly go mainstream and give paper some real competition.

Google launches GDrive (sort of) Another prediction in this issue is that cloud computing (the use of Internet-connected computers for computation and data storage) will get improved business-class functionality. Consumer offerings have gotten better as well, especially now that Google has launched its much-anticipated GDrive storage service.

Well, not really, because the company is obstinately refusing to call it GDrive, but it’s the same idea: users can soon upload a file of any type to Google Docs, where it will remain safe and unchanged until needed again. Users get 1GB of free storage and more space costs a paltry US$0.25 per gigabyte per year.

Previously, only word processing documents, spreadsheets, PDFs and presentations could be stored and then only after conversion to a Google Docs format. Prediction: GDrive’s arrival will increase competition with Microsoft’s SkyDrive and others, driving both the adoption and quality of consumer-level cloud computing.

More wireless competition, please I walked into a Blockbuster in January and encountered the new face of competition in Canada’s cellular world: Wind Mobile had a bright, shiny kiosk in the store, mirroring the displays Rogers usually has in its video stores. In fact, the cellular section of the nearby Rogers store had recently been treated to an extensive makeover; I now understood why.

But while it was shiny, the Wind display was not exactly overflowing with phones. According to the company’s Web site, as of mid-January it offers a good BlackBerry (the Bold 9700), a Windows 6 smartphone (and no one gets excited about WinMo 6 phones), a standard Samsung unit and one lonely BREW touchscreen model made by Huawei.

No iPhone, no Palm Pre and no Android phones. No sexy. And let’s face it: when people buy phones sexy matters. However, Wind is new and it will get better. Prediction: The fact that Rogers improved its retail experience around the time Wind moved in down the street is a small thing, but it’s indicative of the larger change and improvement that will occur in Canada as the incumbents face strengthening competition from Wind and others. 


Peter Wolchak
Editor
pwolchak@backbonemag.com