Issue 15: Happy Holidays!

This sure has been an exciting year on all fronts. As Mac users, we've seen our computing choice reverse course from niche to mainstream, Apple computers turn to a sober, adult business (well, mostly) and incredible technology advances that make our professional as well as personal lives more productive and fun. My own business Graphic Design business has grown quite nicely, and the maturation of design tools such as Dreamweaver, Director, and the upcoming K2 Page layout software to allow us to expand our in house services to include much more then before. This leads me to the subject of this weeks column- my prognostications for the upcoming year. After checking with Kenny Kingston's psychic hotline, consulting the writings of Nostredamus, and running numerology charts for my inseam size, I'm sure of the validity of these as far as you could throw me. So, with your indulgementÖ

1999 Will bring a dramatic change to the low end consumer computer- the free PC. ISPs will begin including complete PCs with an multi year service commitment. This will change the landscape for the alternative computer, such as the iMac. I expect iMac sales to continue to perform well, as there will still be a market segment willing to fork out more cash for a more stylish product, but I don't expect the astronomical sales growth as we've seen in the last 3 months. The PC world isn't standing still- retail consumer PCs will become more stylish reflecting (and attempting to emulate) the success of the iMac. Apple would be forced to accelerate their price reductions under the increased pressure, leading to a more diverse and affordable computing choices. The consumer segment is about to become even more exciting, and Apple is poised to take a commanding role in it.

Apple will release their new high end offering within the first quarter. From all first indications, these will be pretty hot machines- much more exciting then the initial G3 offerings. I'm unsure how the marketplace would bear these- sure, large DTP houses will be quick to gobble them, but the consumer Macs will be cheaper and more attractive to the general user, and Macs face stiff competition at the high end in other segments. The success of these machines will be dependent of whether OS-X ships sometime in 1999 and how well it would be received. As for the G4 chip, I don't foresee anyone developing G4 Macs or upgrade boards until OS-X is a few revisions old. With the current underpinnings, the Mac OS has no capability to leverage its advantages- G4 machines will probably be marginally faster at best then G3s running OS8.

The world is about to change for Microsoft and Intel. I predict that Microsoft will come out victorious from their current legal woes, but not at first and not without a heavy toll. The bad PR Microsoft is earning will force them to change many of their practices whether they win or lose in court. Intel for their part will see their market share slipping faster and faster, as they have become unable to create products to cover all their sales segments- Already Cyrix is nipping at their heels with super low cost integrated PCs (the ones that would be offered in ěfreeî PCs) and AMD's upcoming products are more exciting then what is on Intel's roadmap. Intel would have to do some serious maneuverings if they are to maintain their technical and marketshare leads. Regardless of what Intel pulls out of their sleeves, I expect mainstream PC manufacturers to be offering 1st tier AMD based machines by the end of the year. Windows 2000 will be released by the end of the year, but it will be plagued by bugs and bad PR, and will probably not offer any real advantages over then current Win98/NT offerings for a few revisions. These developments would further weaken the power of Wintel and legitimize alternatives more than ever before- Linux, MacOS, and Beos should all experience growth in marketshare.

If 1998 has been the year of 3D for PCs, 1999 will do the same for Macintoshes. ATI's new Rage128 chip, which will become obsolete in the PC market before the end of 1Q99, will nonetheless offer solid and plausible 3D performance for years to come. As OpenGL will mature on the Mac, games will begin to achieve greater parity from PCs to Macs. Who knows, maybe the new kinder, gentler Microsoft will even share its DirectX API with Apple, allowing game developers to develop cross platform games more easily.

This should be an exciting new year. May it bring you all health and happiness.

I welcome all questions and comments at akoyshman@jps.net or designamics@jps.net