Deloitte previews 2009 technology predictions

Next year is going to feature a more robust mobile web surfing experience, smartphone penetration will continue to make inroads in Canada and the emergence of netbooks will become more apparent in North America, according to Duncan Stewart, director of Deloitte Canada Research.Giving attendees of Insight Media's 5th Canadian Telecommunications Forum in Ottawa last week a sneak peak at Deloitte's 2009 Technology, Media and Telecommunications predictions, Stewart highlighted these trends as three of the more interesting that will take shape next year.Netbooks have been a big hit in Europe already. The mini-laptop computers that run on an Intel X86 processor and have a seven-inch to 10-inch screen cost between $250 and $300. Next year's sales of netbooks will be upwards of $50 million, according to Stewart.The interesting part of about netbooks is European wireless operators subsidized 50% of netbook sales in the region last year, and this trend is going to make its way across the Atlantic. "Deals are being struck as we speak between HP and Dell to subsidize the US wireless carriers," he said.Smartphone penetration will continue to increase despite predictions from the major handset makers of a slowdown in units shipped next year. In 2001, cell phone shipments declined 27% and for next year Gartner is projecting a 9% decrease in units shipped.Stewart said there will not only be device-related trends for next year. On the usability side, mobile browsing is going to become a much richer experience for users. He said developments from Google with its Android handset platform and its new lite browser Chrome are going to shake up the market. Adobe and Apple are also getting into the game with their own mobile browsing platforms.These developments will not only make the user's Internet experience better on the mobile device, it will also enable different types of applications to function at optimal levels. Stewart noted that applications such as salesforce.com didn't work "particularly well" on mobile devices because of memory and processing power."So we're seeing a real transformation where all of a sudden enormous amounts of processor power and the applicable open source tools are landing on people's mobile devices," he told conference attendees. "This has profound implications in Europe right now and I suspect in Canada within the next 24 months, the US probably 12 to 18, where we're seeing tremendous changes in how we design, build and roll out our infrastructure."But developing better mobile browsers could have disastrous effects on wireless carrier networks, according to Stewart. "One of the challenges we're seeing in Europe is carriers are caught on the spiral of providing enormous subsidies, which is great for driving growth, but then all of sudden causes very significant network congestion," he explained. North America isn't immune either and the launch of the iPhone in some of the more densely geographies created network congestion."This is a real issue today and I suspect it's not far from happening here," Stewart warned.

Deloitte previews 2009 technology predictions

News | 12/01/2008 8:03 pm EST

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