Bits 2011: The Year Ahead

We gaze into our crystal ball to see what 2011 is likely to bring our way.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2011/01/01/2011-the-year-ahead/1

 

I'm really looking forward to what ARM can give us this year. I'd love to see real competition between different architectures in the desktop market again, like during the 80s and 90s.

On which note, I would also like to see Bulldozer released sooner than July I guess I'll be ending up with a Sandy Bridge system like everybody else because I probably can't wait that long to upgrade

 

And the world doesn't end . . . yet.

 

Really looking forward to how things pan out with AMD/Intel/ARM. Would be nice to see a more level playing field with no one dominant company.

Intrigued by Duke, but we'll see on that front.

What I really want from the next year is an announcement about a new Half-Life!

 

I'm interested in the fusion apu. I need a new laptop soon and amd one's don't seem to have the performance (both processing and battery) of intel but are much more affordable. Hopefully, this will provide better performance while still being cheaper.

 

I agree broadly with the predictions. Tablets will continue to grow fast, but I don't agree with the description of them being useless. I think the iPad does have some compelling uses, and while there are restrictions for developers using the App store, the impending release of a CDMA iPhone 4 will continue Apple's massive dominance of the industry. Can developers afford to ignore a market that large?

I too see a 2011 with nVidia as the dominant graphics manufacturer.

 

Nvidia takes back the graphics market? I suspect that it will be a far more complex situation than that in 2011.

They certainly have a lot of catching up to do on the DX11 front, however if they do get a GTX560 out of the door in early 2011, then i think it will be a very interesting time for the sub £200 market, with some very competitive deals from both manufacturers.

 

Good predictions but I think android tablets will be far more useful and successful than you think. When Honeycomb rolls around with a better UI for tablets that's when it will really take off.

 

No visionary predictions here, I'm afraid. How about:

-- SSDs will hit a decent price point for the first time.
-- a new RAM architecture will hit the laptop market that will allow for instant-on booting. This will trickle to desktops by 2012
-- the Apple iPad will continue to grow. Others will wither --except for Android 3 devices. Meego and HP's WebOS devices will be a great idea that came too late. Windows Mobile 7 will be a decent success but Microsoft will stubbornly refuse to port Windows Mobile 7 to a tablet and hence miss out yet again.
-- iPhone 5 will include and exploit to the fullest RFID. Think wireless syncing as you put your iPhone next to your Mac or peripherals; wireless small financial transactions (e.g. Starbucks), semi-automatic exchange of information between iPhone owners etc. Of course Google Nexus did it first, but because Apple did it better everyone will assume it was Apple's idea and every Apple hater will accuse Jobs of making out it was.
-- Windows 8 will achieve Alpha. It will look suspiciously 'closed garden' as there is an increased push to Windows Live services. More monopoly lawsuits fire up in response.
-- Google will compete with Windows Live more explicitly.

 

The graphics market itself will be changed, with 2011 seeing the death of the low-end discrete parts. Probably everything under £50 will be made redundant by AMD and Intel's new on-die GPUs, which can't be good news for Nvidia. Not sure what future there is for tegra either, with numerous other ARM based chips around. Apple and others' continued push for OpenCL and AMD's new graphics architecture will also start to infringe on Nvidia's dominance in GPGPU, squeezing their share of another lucrative market sector. I'm sure that Nvidia will do well in the mid to high-end gaming sector that's most relevant to bit-techers (at least until the next process shrink), but overall it's not looking quite so rosy for the company.

 

What??? No Episode 3.....



Wake me in 2012

 

Seems fairly good/safe predictions. I'd agree with all of them, including that nVidia will crawl back and possibly overtake ATI/AMD.

 

Hello Bit-tech

I'm looking to ARM Eagle, Mali and Duke with my binocular. I hope we will see some numbers soon. Gary Smith spooks me
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFGT7KmStvM

 

Apple continue to annoy Apple haters with sexy stuff.

Before the end of the year, manufacturers have produced 3D electronics worth adding to Xmas lists.

 

That's pretty much what I was thinking. That market must already be shrinking due to Intel's current i3's, and with new and improved chips from both AMD & Intel this year it must surely be only a matter of time...

 

Probably we see an increased emphasis on low-power, lean devices that do dldpecifuc tasks well rather than the flexible but lumbering powerhouses that PCs still are today.

 

More coffee, Nexxo. Your brains not working right

I think there is too much Apple hatred for them to really get dominant yet. The diversification of offerings in sectors once dominated by MS is promising. Remember when your choices were Internet Explorer or Netscape? Likewise, more and more alternate OSs are becoming viable. Chrome is going to revolutionize the market, and I can see a situation where as tablets become more common people start asking for Android on laptops and desktops. Interoperability will be a challenge, but hopefully this will force everyone to become more standards based.

 

Why would nvidia take ATi's spot if ATi's driver team is so freaking awesome, I never thought I'd have the benneficial experience of buying a 2gpu card and having only one work for more than 6 months of drivers.

 

Yeah!! I want to play Duke Nukem on my X360 with Kinect...

 

I doubt this. It will probably be years before they are at a *decent* price point. But then I imagine you could park an A380 between my definition of decent and yours.