The major news topics in technology for 2013 were NSA Prism privacy violations, floundering Healthcare.gov, and huge Twitter IPO. While some in the press deemed the year a lost one for technology, the following predictions were fairly accurate and drove the economy:

1. 3D printers invigorate. Like Motley Fool regularly states, “It’s over China” as 3D printers bring American ingenuity back to prominence in the world economy.
2. Cost cutting continues. Matrixforce added more than a thousand subscribers to Office 365 and increased  managed services customer base over 10%, at much lower cost than on-premise infrastructure and legacy support.
3. Author rank dominates. Google+ continues to become more important in recognizing authors and even Bing has begun to derive the author and show a picture profile next to search results.
4. Windows 8 dominates. Windows 8 is all that is available at retail stores, but the current install base is only 11%. As we continue to move toward the April deadline for end of support for XP, a nearly 30% void will be open for Windows 7 and 8.1.
5. Apple decline continues. Apple stock has risen slightly with the holidays, but with nothing really new in the product line and the fact that the NSA has complete backdoor access to iPhone means significant looming trouble.
6. Browser wars are over. While the press tried to beat the drum as something to write about, browser choice never really broke into the consciousness of the average person. They just want it to work on their phone.
7. Cloud decided. Microsoft did announce a $1.7 billion dollar annual run rate for Office 365 clobbering Google Apps by a factor of 3 as more organizations and consumers move to cloud computing.
8. Responsive design rules. Besides the IPO, Twitter is known for a new standard called Bootstrap defining mobile-first web development.
9. Google singularity. Hummingbird decimated sites trying to game the system with SPAM. Now the question is do you remove the SPAM links when requested or leave them there to continue the punishment?
10. Social media plummets. It definitely has lost the cool factor, but Facebook is the leader in social media. The Twitter IPO is another example that popular sites are not declining.

Published by Kevin Fream

Many people don't understand their current situation and become frustrated in business and life, so I created the Delta Method and wrote the #1 Best-Seller "Change Your Game" - as featured at Harvard and NASDAQ as well as national TV news. Streamline your technology for competitive advantage using vetted IT support and take a divergent approach to personal growth. View all posts by Kevin Fream