Technology Trends of 2012

The consumer technology market is affecting the corporate world

Welcome to my annual technology trends column, where I wade through the bits and bytes of the computerized world and identify the stories that will define the coming year. A tall order, indeed, that I usually meet by pointing to the trends that will affect our corporate lives. 

But this year I’m covering the consumer angle as well. Why?  Because trends in the consumer market are affecting the corporate world.

Trend #1: Kindle Lights a Fire

One year ago I said that 2011 would be the Year of the Tablets. Not one tablet, many tablets. But especially Apple’s iPad.

Turns out I was right. You could argue that 2011 was the Year of the iPad, but the past year taught all tablet makers one important lesson: price matters.

When Hewlett-Packard held a fire sale to rid itself of the TouchPad, it sold more units than Apple’s almighty product, albeit at a deeply discounted price.

Taking note, Amazon released a new Kindle e-reader, the Kindle Fire, just in time for the holiday season, featuring Google Android, a web browser and a host of apps, all at less than the cost it takes to produce one. But unlike any tablet maker other than Apple, Amazon has its own store of books, movies and videos, plus distribution agreements with movie studios, record labels and publishing houses.

That’s why the Kindle Fire is subsidized. It goes back to the Gillette (or Crest) model. Give someone a razor (or a toothbrush) and you can sell them shaving cream (or toothpaste) for life. Amazon hopes to sell people media content for life. The result? The personal tablet market has split into two camps: the high-end Apple iPad and the low-end Kindle Fire.

So what does this mean for the business market? My prediction for 2012: iPads and Fires will start appearing in your office, with employees wanting to use them for business.

The tough part is that both devices are engineered for consumers rather than the corporate market. But as long as Apple and Amazon can subsidize their hardware via consumer-based media content, they might just corner the corporate market.

Trend #2: Content to the Clouds

Where do you store your digital music, pictures, books and movies? 10 years ago you stored them on your personal computer, right? But today you store them on a variety of gadgets — your cellphone, your tablet, your laptop, your mobile listening device.

Steve Jobs called this online repository of data a “digital hub,” and, as he explained to Walter Isaacson, his biographer, “over the next few years, the hub is going to move from your computer into the cloud.”

The fact is, consumers are getting more and more demanding. They want their content — music, pictures, books and movies — wherever and whenever they feel like it. So I predict that another major trend of 2012 will be the move of consumer content to the clouds. Because even if you’re not an Apple user, the move to the clouds is coming no matter whose hardware you use.

Apple is already marketing cloud computing to its customers (“Your content. On all your devices.”) through the iCloud, promising “automatic, effortless, and seamless” integration between mobile devices.

Surprisingly, consumers don’t seem overly concerned about their privacy or the security of their data — they just assume that their cloud provider will protect their information.

But the corporate world is different. Business does not and will not take security for granted. As consumer demand drives the proliferation of cloud storage services, companies continue to explore the benefits of data storage and the software as a service model (SaaS, sometimes called “software on demand”), while others are looking for cloud-based environments that resemble a desktop computer, and are looking at the platform as a service model (PaaS).

Others still are willing to go further and want the whole underlying connection of servers, databases and network systems  available as infrastructure as a service, or IaaS.

But there’s no doubt in my mind that, as consumers adjust to the concept of storing and managing their personal data in an environment that, strictly speaking, is not their own, our acceptance of a digital hub in the clouds will continue to drive the further adoption and enhancement of cloud computing in the corporate sector.

Trend #3: Corporate Security & Consumers

In 2011, a new type of cyberattack, Advanced Persistent Threat (APT), came to the forefront. APTs target organizations. Their perpetrators learn everything about their target and its employees in order to masquerade as them electronically and attack their defences and access controls. The end goal is to steal privileged information about customers, clients or trade secrets.

PWC just released its Global State of Information Security Survey for 2012, in which it surveyed retail and consumer industry executives for feedback on their information security practices. It found that, while executives were not confident about their security systems, a majority of respondents “revealed that

their organization’s security policy does not address APT, nor do they have the capabilities and tools to combat it.”

Welcome to 2012. The Year of Tablets, Clouds and Persistent Threats.

Technology Tidbits

From tablets to cellphones, five recent tech stories that caught our attention

It’s time for some tidbits! The world of information technology is changing so rapidly today that it’s hard to keep up with all the news — so let’s jump right in to some of the most fascinating stories from the last six months.

HP: That was Then, This is Now

Hewlett-Packard, the world’s largest maker of personal computers, is like an absurd soap opera that you just can’t stop watching. Last summer, chief executive officer Leo Apotheker announced that HP was getting out of the PC market — if it could find a buyer. Under attack from tablets and mobile phones, HP had decided it would rather sell its US$8 billion Personal Systems Group than compete against the likes of Apple and Samsung.

That was then, this is now. As we go to press, HP has just announced the firing of Apotheker and the hiring of Meg Whitman, the former CEO of eBay, as his replacement.

The failed California gubernatorial candidate and billionaire Whitman wasted no time in announcing that HP’s PC business is not for sale, making crystal clear who is running HP now. We wish her luck. HP has fired three CEOs in six years. A recent Reuters story asked “Is HP competing for ‘worst board ever’ honors?” How long will Whitman last? Place your bets now.

HP: Fire Sale on TouchPad Tablets!

Will Whitman also save the TouchPad? That’s doubtful. The TouchPad was a flop and HP has killed the webOS platform, which it acquired by buying Palm for US$1.2 billion in 2010. But in its ensuing fire sale inventory clearance, the TouchPad became the hottest selling tablet in history — even outshining sales of the iPad.  Why would anyone want such a short-lived product, with virtually no development community? 

Well, by lowering the TouchPad’s liquidation price to US$99 for some models, HP proved that price points matter to consumers, especially when direct competitors to the iPad (like the Samsung Galaxy Tablet) are priced around US$300 and more.

Of course, the explanation could also lie with consumers who want to own piece of history: the last souvenir from the days of the once dominant handheld technology of Palm. Though long-time readers will recall that I was once inseparable from my own Palm product, the T3 PDA, I’m sure nostalgia wasn’t the reason.

So was it the promotional package HP ran with online cloud storage company Box.net? Consumers were promised 50GB of free cloud storage for life if they purchased specified HP technologies — including the TouchPad. And since a Box.net account is worth about US$25 a month, their Touchpad purchase would pay for itself in less than a year. No wonder HP is so dysfunctional!

OnStar: Looking Back to the Future

OnStar, the popular technological anti-theft, navigation and emergency communication system offered in many GM vehicles, is coming soon to a car near you. GM is selling a rearview mirror retrofit called OnStar FMV (For My Vehicle), which can be installed in cars other than GM. While the retrofit has many of the same features as the GM model (automatic crash response and roadside assistance), it can’t tell your direction, whether your car has flipped, or a whole slew of diagnostics that the GM-based product would typically upload to its help centre.

NetFlix: Loses Deal, Sees Starz

A key component to the content of online video streaming service Netflix is soon to disappear. Starz Entertainment, whose library includes a treasure trove of movies from Disney Studios and Sony Entertainment, is ending its partnership with Netflix, effective February 28, 2012.

Markets don’t tolerate vacuums for long. The announcement foreshadows the emergence of other streaming-content providers or other content holders to fill the void. Either way, the news will be good for consumers, as more competition may lead to cheaper prices and more content.

Shaw: Not Hanging Up on the Cellphone

Shaw Communications has abruptly cancelled its plans to build a national wireless network. This comes as a bit of surprise because, as recently as last April, Shaw had said it was forging ahead with its plans, and most of its peers in the communications industry are expanding into and even dominating this market.

Shaw will instead focus on developing community-based WiFi networking products. But that’s just as upsetting to traditional landline providers like Bell, which is losing customers to media kings like Rogers, and wireless upstarts like Wind Mobile and Mobilicity, who are changing the rules of the wireless game.

Cloud Computing: A Reader Responds

A reader recently contacted me about my column, “Computing Clouds Gathering” (Statements, June/July 2011), with concerns that some readers might infer that it’s now completely safe to use cloud services.

On the contrary, I believe that cloud computing still has a ways to go before it’s robust enough to be a viable option to any company concerned with protecting sensitive information, but I do think the situation is improving.

Keep your comments coming. I love getting feedback from readers and especially my fellow CGAs, who know a thing or two about technology.

Marketing for the Modern Accounting Firm, 10.1 Inches at a Time . . . .

For this entire year, the tablet market has been hot.  Though dominated by Apple’s iPad, various competitors have introduced many other devices as well:  Motorola Xoom , Blackberry Playbook, Samsung Galaxy Tab, HP Touchpads, ASUS Eee Pad Transformers, among others.   Accountants will reach for them; so will their current and prospective clients.  How could an accountant use these new gadgets to market their company?

Starting first with the more obvious choices, tablets provide a very easy way for accountants to present live/dynamic information to prospective clients.  Marketing presentations stored on the tablet can be called up and displayed at a moment’s notice.  If there’s a wi-fi or cell connection nearby, the tablet can call up live information from the company’s web-site, or from news sources (stock markets, regulatory bodies, etc.).  Using a tablet this way can show prospective clients that accountants are technologically savvy and embracing new trends.

While not directly or exclusively related to tablet computers, participation in various social media endeavours represents a “must” for modern age marketing.  Social media, especially services like Twitter and LinkedIn, allow modern accountants to provide timely snippets of information to current and prospective clients.  Traditional social media echoes a user posting to ALL of their followers.  For accounting firms, this could be problematic; as most practices offer varieties of specialised consulting that may not be relevant to all clients.  In contrast, Google’s latest attempt at breaking into the FaceBook/Twitter realm – Google Plus (“Google+”) allows users to create “circles” of interest.  This innovation would allow firms to specifically target tips, bulletins, and other specific information directly to intended targets.  Google+ is in beta-test stages at the moment, and there’s a general cap upon signing up new users.  But once ready for prime-time, this tool may be very handy to accountants.

How does social media relate to the use of tablets?  In general, tablets are fantastic for presenting information to clients.  Latest bulletins can be directly referenced while in boardroom meetings, blogged articles quickly researched and incorporated into presentations, and direct commentary posted relating to current economic situations.  They’re also handy for collecting information.  While in the field, tablets can be used to provide information updates directly to clients via social media. 

Tablets – and to a lesser extent, any mobile computing device – can allow accounting firms or companies to extend their reach directly to prospective and existing clients through the use of firm-branded applications.  If one studies Apple’s iStore development, you’ll notice that most of the applications cater to consumer interests.  How do existing companies reach their consumers?  For the most part, they find some way of extending their brand into the “app ecosystem”.  For example, all of the major financial institutions in Canada have a mobile application that provides useful information such as nearest ATM, nearest branch, various services, and online account balances.

Corporate clients are consumers, too.  Therefore, accounting firms – and frankly, any company for that matter – need to package relevant information into their own branded application.  The Big Four accounting firms are well-along with their adaptation of branded applications.  A quick search of Apple’s iStore, comes up with these samples of content offerings:

-          Deloitte:  Podcasts on variety of tax and assurance topics, whitepapers on technology, business insight information.  Leadership Development resources

-          Ernst & Young:  In-house articles, topical magazine-style write-ups, whitepapers, info sheets, general business insight information.

-          KPMG:  applications delivering access to latest bulletins, brochures, whitepapers, economic forecasts, advisory briefings in all major client practice segments, and career planning information for accounting students.  General business insight information.

-          PriceWaterhouseCoopers:  Various podcast subscriptions regarding leadership, marketing, management, business news.

Looking again to the finance sector, some financial institutions are allowing account lookup, funds transfer, and other transactional activities.  Is it possible for accounting firms to move forward into similar personalized information?  Could a firm create a client portal concept?  Within that portal, have relevant corporate info streaming to them?  Things like:

-          Tax instalment reminders (with amounts )

-          Taxes owed

-          Industry/sector-specific briefing notes

-          Status of service work – ie, 2008 audit complete”, “2009 audit in progress”, “2010 audit waiting for you to drop off information”, “2010 tax returns in final review”, “2011 tax planning meeting to be scheduled.”

-          Current Key-Performance Indicators, if either real-time auditing or if the firm is engaged in controllership management services

Naturally, applications delivering this kind of content would need to address considerable security and access policies, not to mention back-end server systems that could push this content from the year-end write-up software.  But the idea of accounting firms having their own branded applications is certainly on the rise:  Per above, the Big Four have a head start, and you can expect to see the Next Three expanding into this zone as well.

If branded apps is the grail for tablet marketing, can firms do something now to start the process?

The answer:  Certainly – and it doesn’t require hiring a ton of programmers, either.  As mentioned already, tablets are great for presenting information.  So, firms need to get as much of their information assembled into portable documents as possible (ie, Adobe PDF).  Once that information is ready, upload it to the corporate web site.  From there, accountants in the field can download/display the documents within the tablet web browser system.   Besides static brochures, consider also the following, complete with your company logo, address, etc at the top:

-          Template Spreadsheets:  Having pre-programmed spreadsheets that can quickly assist with estimated calculations could impress clients.  Consider templates for common situations, such as buy/lease, salary/dividends/bonus, and spousal income-splitting.

-          Tax worksheets:  Not many tax preparation software vendors have “apps for that” (at least not yet).  Build further spreadsheets to calculate some basic tax estimates, deduction transfers, etc.

-          Loan Amortization Schedules/calculators

-          Asset Amortization Schedules

-          Payroll Deduction templates

-          Cost/Volume/Profit (Break-Even) calculator

-          Engagement letters, special purpose contracts/agreements,

-          Engagement estimation templates

DataViz’s Documents-To-Go is one time-honoured application that can work with indigenous Microsoft Office formatted documents and is available cross-platform for various tablet devices.

Tablets provide a convenient way to present information within meetings.  Firms will need to look into adopting marketing strategies with these devices.  Whether using calculation templates, canned brochures, web content or firm-branded applications to convey information, accountants can’t overlook the significance that tablets will bring to the client relationship experience.

How Safe is Syncing and Sharing?

File synchronization services are convenient but safety is a concern

I am a loyal customer of Dropbox, an online backup service that allows you to share documents between computers, tablets and smart phones.

When you install its software, Dropbox places a folder on your desktop (or anywhere else you choose) that looks and acts just like any other folder on your computer. When you move a file into your Dropbox folder — Presto! — the program copies the files to similar folders on your other computing devices. That’s called “file synchronization,” and Dropbox is called a “synchronization service,” or “sync service” for short.

Sync services are a form of cloud computing. You upload your files to private servers and your files are automatically downloaded to your other computing devices. It’s incredibly convenient. No longer do you need to carry countless USB keys or store your files on CDs or DVDs. You just transfer and update your files on all your devices through the clouds.

But with all that file sharing going on, one has to ask: How safe is syncing and sharing?

Sync Security

Naturally I’m concerned about the storage of unencrypted sensitive data on servers outside my control. I use Dropbox for non-confidential purposes only — saving research notes, web articles, white papers and other documents that would be of no consequence if they were accidentally disclosed.

But Dropbox came under criticism recently for security weaknesses. Critics drew attention to the fact that the staff at Dropbox could, in theory, access customer data if required in the operation of the service. Further, they could do so without your knowledge, if served with a U.S. government warrant under the Patriot Act of 2001.

Worse still, the San Francisco-based startup experienced a four-hour security breach that affected its password authentication. For four hours on June 19, 2011, any user could access any account using any password. The breach, attributed to a code update, was a highly embarrassing and costly incident for a tech firm that in 2010 appeared on Business Insider’s list of “20 Hot Silicon Valley Startups You Need To Watch.”

In the end, it turned out that only a hundred or so accounts were affected, but the breach called into question the security of all sync services, including SpiderOak, SugarSync and Box.net.

SpiderOak

The strength of SpiderOak lies in its “zero knowledge” security practices. SpiderOak does not store file names, encryption keys or passwords, which means that employees and hackers cannot steal information related to your syncing and sharing.

SpiderOak also differs from other syncing services in its functionality. While it allows you to designate any folder on your system to synchronize (rather than creating a specific folder like Dropbox), you have to upload files to SpiderOak first before syncing them, rather than simply dragging and dropping files into a desktop application that does the job for you all at once.

Its been called slow and complicated by its critics. You have to make sure its utility is running and its backup schedule is set according to your preferences. But, on the other hand, you feel secure and in control of your data.

SugarSync

A strong competitor to Dropbox, SugarSync lacks the strong third-party application tools and support of Dropbox, but allows you to upload from multiple folders (like SpiderOak) and has full web transfer capabilities on a variety of mobile devices, including Apple and RIM products. SugarSync works well with Documents To Go, the office suite for mobile devices that provides document synchronization between handheld devices and computers. It also provides for direct posting to Facebook Photos. Transferred files are stored in the cloud in an encrypted format.

Box.net

Finally, Box.net, which recently joined forces with Google to compete against Microsoft’s Office 365 in the software as a service field, targets the corporate crowd, emphasizing the benefits of group collaboration through an online workspace. In terms of security, it’s similar to Dropbox and SugarSync, in that it encrypts and stores personal information in the clouds. However, if you’re concerned about other users (even colleagues) accessing your files, you can tag files with an automatic expiry date and apply passwords to specific files.

Products and Price Points

Of course, these are just the main competitors in a rapidly expanding market, and they are all trying to differentiate themselves based on features, function, storage space and price. I’m stiill using my trusty Dropbox folder, but I caution you to make sure you’re comfortable with the security and privacy policies of your chosen sync service.

Microsoft Office 365 - Cloud Goes Mainstream for the Small/Midsized Business (SMB)

Many technology consultants, including myself, predict that 2011 will be the year that outsourced networking resources – “cloud computing” being the popular name – will come into the mainstream.  Over the years, the concept has had many names:  Application Service Providers (ASP) and Software as a Service (SaaS) were two of the more recent names coined for the concept of locating your application software – if not your data itself – on some server farm located “somewhere on the planet.”

To date, technical sophistication limited many companies from looking at cloud technologies.  The cheap/affordable public systems, such as Google Apps, tend to lack many of the features to which business and large-entity users are accustomed.  On the other end, successful custom platforms – such as Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) or Microsoft’s Azure environment – require fairly high-end technical knowledge for many organizations to configure and connect to their conventional systems.  And through all of this, we bean-counters have said “I’m not going to trust *my* accounting and other privileged data to some system outside of my control.”

But that’s changing, and quite quickly at that.

In my eyes, the first significant development is the (US 2002) Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA).  This act lays out the base-line information technology/security (IT/IS) requirements of any network that is to support sensitive information – surprisingly, the tenets of this Act are not that conceptually different than the goals of COBIT or the Payment Card Industry (PCI) doctrines.  Yet, FISMA is the minimum standard security/technical certification framework for which *any* US Federal government data system must comply; specifically, for the protection of privileged information.  For the accounting community, FISMA means that the concerns about data protection are met.

The second significant development – to me at least – is Microsoft’s new Office 365 product.  Just entering “beta” stage as of this past April, Office 365 is a re-vamp of Microsoft’s cloud-based Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS), encompassing Microsoft’s top network infrastructure tools:  MS Exchange, Sharepoint and Lync (nee Office Communicator Server).  The difference is that all of these have a “dumbed down” interface for all of us who are not network server engineers and – you guessed it – all of this infrastructure is up and running in a cloud environment.

Nota Bene:  Office 365 does *not* include the popular MS-Office suite of desktop products – no Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook – rather, Office 365 is the infrastructure that takes data from the desktop tools and connects it up with all of your users (wherever they may be).

At the time of writing, this new MS Office 365 hasn’t exactly obtained FISMA certification yet but, it’s expected that it will by summer time (or shortly thereafter).  When that happens, a very interesting dynamic will be in place:

-       Easy access to cloud computing for the masses – you just sign up for it right from the Microsoft home page

-          You can use your familiar applications on your desktop but have your people connected via cloud (for Exchange servers like calendars, email and Lync services such as text chat, audio/video conferencing, whiteboarding, desktop-sharing, and presence tracking via MS-Outlook).  You can work together on your common Word/Excel/PowerPoint files, except that you would now store them in the SharePoint components to let it coordinate the collaboration.

-         Rich features that users already know how to use (unlike “work-in-progress” of Google Apps)

-          Enhanced collaboration capabilities compared to your local network systems (“modify/track changes” on steroids)

-          Access to your data from anywhere

-          Access your data/files on ANY DEVICE – cell phone, PC, iPad, Android phone, BlackBerry – as long as you have a data plan and can tap into the Internet at your location.

-          No need to invest in large file servers, storage drives, backup tapes, etc. – Microsoft will be worrying about all of that for you

-         Still worried about the privacy and confidentiality aspects of your data?  Remember that once the service is FISMA-certified, all of those concerns are out the window.  If it passes FISMA, chances are that the system will be far more secure than your own systems could ever be – especially if you’re a small/mid-sized organization.

-         Cost:  US$ 7/month per user to small organizations (as of April during the beta test period).  If you need licences for MS Office 2007/2010 for your users, add about $25/month/user to that figure (volume discounts, apparently, will apply)

This move by Microsoft will do wonders to entice people over to the cloud experience.    Up until this point, Microsoft largely was criticized for its weak cloud offerings.  Not to say that it didn’t have a feasible cloud environment (Azure) but, it was an environment that required higher-end technical knowledge to use.  Office 365 really changes that in a meaningful way:  Now, small/mid-sized organizations could easily make use of the cloud environment.  However to get the most benefit from the system, organizations may need to get their SharePoint Server knowledge up to speed.

I do expect that Google (and others) will be racing to catch up

My Winter Grab Bag

Bits and bytes from the information technology world plus a few fearless predictions for 2011

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas this past January was interesting not for what appeared but for what did not. The hero of the show was Apple’s iPad tablet — everywhere you turned you saw tablet competitors — but you didn’t see the iPad itself. Nearly 100 tablets were unveiled at CES, a show which also focused on 3D TVs and high-end “in-vehicle” wireless systems, but almost every conversation referenced the iPad.

Apple just doesn’t like to share the spotlight. It prefers to launch products at times and places of its own choosing. And why not? 2010 marked the triumph of the iPad. Everything else paled in comparison.

           

Focus On Electric

Ford Motor Company captured some attention at the CES with the unveiling of the Ford Focus Electric. Destined to hit the market near the end of 2011, the car has a top speed of around 135km per hour and mileage of around 100km per 2.5L of fuel.

Apparently it takes three to four hours to charge the Focus Electric, which at today’s electricity rates, may make it more costly to operate than expected, but it does come with software (as part of Ford’s deal with Microsoft) to help make use of off-peak time electrical rates.

Goodbye to the Past

Ironically, a dear friend of mine passed away at the end of the year: my trusty old Palm Tungsten T3. Its battery ran out, literally erasing everything in its memory.

I bought my T3 in 2002. It was the best Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) I’ve ever had. Originally used to remotely synchronize data with my workplace MSExchange server (a task now done by my Blackberry), my T3 and I took MSWord notes together in the field, looked up varieties of contact information, and even read e-books, played games and watched movies together, when we had some time to kill in airport lounges, bus depots and taxi cabs.

I like embracing technological change but I do believe in the old adage “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Virtually every aspect of the T3 can now be done by other tools. But most of the iPhone/iPod apps are in their infancy compared to the more robustly featured Palm apps of the day.

That will change, given time, but  unless your employer lets you consolidate all your personal and corporate applications, data and multimedia into one device (mine doesn’t), you get stuck with carrying multiple gadgets around.

Just like the modern toys, a simple “re-sync” of the erased Palm T3 to its mother computer should restore everything back to normal. But alas, that particular computer has long since been retired from active service, and Palm had given up making device drivers for the newer operating systems. 

2011: Year of the Tablet

2011 will be the Year of the Tablet. Not one tablet. Many tablets. The BlackBerry Playbook. The Samsung Galaxy. The Motorola Xoom. And of course the Apple iPad. Especially the Apple iPad.

Sure, tablets are, generally speaking, lousy for doing productive work, but they do excel at monitoring information — email, websites, multimedia, document viewing — and, given their size, I predict that they will completely decimate the netbook marketplace in 2011.

2011: The Skies Clear for Cloud Computing

Cloud computing will take off in 2011. I know, I said that in 2010, but really, it’s going to happen this year.

We've been on the brink of it for ages but the growth of the smart phone and tablet computer will push cloud computing to the consumer and business forefront. People want easy ways of sharing information between one device and another — something much easier to do if the information in question is already stored “out there,” rather than on a specific computer.

Take a look at the BlackBerry Exchange Server (BES), which easily synchronizes your email, calendar and other applications between your desktop, MSExchange and BlackBerry.

Similarly, Google’s Gmail, Apps and Picasa allow for content to be stored, viewed, created and edited on one device, while the results replicate to every other device you use. Apple, DropBox and Microsoft are all working on applications that use cloud computing as well.

In 2010 I waved goodbye to an old and trusted friend who passed away on the cusp of a new era in gizmos and gadgets. I loved my Palm T3 but it was incapable of taking advantage of the new paradigms of cloud and group collaboration. I predict that I’ll find a new favourite gadget in 2011.