My Top 10 Technology Predictions for 2012

So let us look at my last year predictions as posted on http://www.roshiley.com/blog/my-top-10-technology-predictions-2011 and how it stands today at end of 12 months.

1) HTML5, CSS3 and Ruby on Rails 3 - demand for these skills have picked up significantly. There is a severe shortage of skilled Ruby on Rails developers globally.

2) Drupal 7 has not lived up to people's expectations. Not many Drupal 6 sites owners are keen to move their sites to Drupal 7. Those who have tried have run into many unforeseen issues and there has also been instances where people have either switched back to earlier version or dropped Drupal platform entirely. A last 12 month search volume on "google trends" shows that post Drupal 7 release, there are today less people searching for 'Drupal'. There was also a blog this year titled "Drupal in Crisis" that came out with highlighted issues around Drupal http://www.unleashedmind.com/en/blog/sun/the-drupal-crisis.

In a significant move, Dries flew to India to encourage Indian Drupalers to contribute code. According to me, it is far too late as Drupal now has lost its momentum because of D.O's protective policies and not showing openness to global IT talent due to which the product today has lost its charm, is unstable and very buggy.

3) Video Marketing has been very hot this year. You now have Youtube Ads over Videos. Video Resumes are on rise. You must have heard about "Kolaveri Di'? - a song that became instant hit over Youtube. Mobile Development is in full steam now with every day more and more mobile development startups cropping up. Most fresh graduates are investing their time to learn about iPhone/Andriod/iPad programming. This is a clear irreversible trend.

LG came out with Optimus 3D smartphone along with other smart device manufacturers. There are already few Mobile 3D Games, Movies out there. "Ra - One" was a movie targeting 3D audience and we now also have "Don 2" in India. http://www.thinkdigit.com/Mobiles-PDAs/LG-to-boost-3D-content-with-3D_74... Android Phone Sales have displaced iPhone (iOS) phone sales. Everyone wants to get Objective-C, Ruby, Java, iOS, Android Programming, iPhone Programming on their resumes.

4) Large IT shops have been under severe pressure to hire bright talent to lower costs. They continue to silently layoff expensive middle management folks. Services business is not giving decent returns so these shops have now started building products. The productivity working in large shops just doesn't exist today. TCS, Infosys, Wipro, Tech Mahindra are no longer the firms brilliant people want to build their careers with. There is clear trend in today's fresh graduates to prefer smaller shop with excellent job profile over working in larger shop with higher pay but not doing mentally challenging work. Check out for yourself on internet the headcount, revenue and profits of any of the large IT services firm and you will get a scary picture.

5) Unless you are in a QA role forced to test against IE, as a developer you will always - always want to start first with Firefox as a browser. There are some very cool add-ons that can really help you with debugging in firefox. IE and Chrome lag in this space.

6) Today FB, LI, G+, Twitter are the only ones people use most of the time. Other not so popular social networks are just burning cash and majority of others out there are either not making enough money to survive or even have closed down. Even google has closed down many of its products this year so help it stay focused to compete with FB. Unless your social network has a niche in an area and has a membership model, 2012 may be last year you may survive.

7) Cloud Computing and SaaS has clearly dominated this year.

8) I can watch TV or make Phone call from my PC with Internet connection. Or I can watch TV in my smart phone as well as browse internet. This is now accepted that you do not need to invest in multiple devices. Just use smart devices and have high speed connection and you can use single device for everything. Ah!!! I can't work and watch TV at the same time though on the same device :-)

9) One of the highest number of Solar, Healthcare startups started in 2011. Auto ? Watch this World's fastest solar car - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3O-_9w_sDE & Solar Plane http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=5oNHD41MLMk

10) Home Automation and Security Market have continued to grow in this period of recession. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/companies-markets-2016-us-market-foreca...

Now here are my 2012 predictions :
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Wait till 1 Jan 2012.