It’s that time of the year again where people will start giving their predictions for what will hold for the  tech industry in the new year.  With the economy being in the state that it is, mostly everything I have read so far is pretty pessimistic, but putting politics aside, I think 2009 has potential to be a big rebound as far as tech goes.

With that being said, I will start with the most obvious one.

1. Windows 7 arrives.  Microsoft hasn’t been too forthcoming about when the next version of Windows will arrive, and we have heard dates going all the way to 2011.  I think Windows 7 will arrive sometime this summer with a hype that we didn’t see with Vista.  I haven’t gotten my hands on Windows 7 yet, but I am hearing some really great things about it so far.  We are already getting a glimpse of how Windows 7 will operate, but what we haven’t heard much about is the gritty details such as pricing and versioning.  I have written about before the need for Win7 to have a more family-friendly licensing, and to drop the numerous SKU’s for just one or two.
    
   
2. Steve Jobs leave Apple.  Apple shocked the tech community recently when they announced this years Macworld will be its last, and that Steve Jobs will not give the final keynote.  Speculation and rumors are running abound about the reasons behind it, but that simple fact is that Jobs is on his way out.  How this will affect Apple going forward is yet to be seen, but Apple’s stocks will certainly take a hit once this is announced.  This certainly won’t mean the end for Apple, but will they continue on their current track with new leadership?  I say yes.
   
   
3. Online services takeover.  Well “takeover” is a bit of a stretch, but 2009 will be the year when more and more services like “the cloud” launch.  In 2008 we saw services like Google Documents become more usable, and saw others like Microsoft step their feet into the online office waters.  Apple dove right in with MobileMe, which despite its rough launch, it has shown what “cloud” services can do for the average consumer.  Just today I was reading more speculation that iWork will move towards online integration, but no confirmation as of yet.  And of course we can’t forget Microsoft’s announcement of their Azure platform which has some tremendous potential.
   
   
4. Next-gen consoles revealed.  The next-gen consoles like the Xbox 360 are not so “next-gen” anymore, and this year we will get a peek at the next, “next-gen” consoles.  We still won’t see the actual units ship until at least late 2010, but the hype machine won’t wait that long.  Aside from the usual graphic improvements, blu-ray will once again be a big feature, along with more integration with home entertainment features. 
   
   
5. Social networks “slow down”.  This year we seen social networks like Facebook, Friendfeed, and Twitter really take off.  The popularity of these services spawned a ton of startup services, but towards the end of the year we have also seen many of them fade into oblivion.  2009 will bring a new wave of updates such as a “pro” version of Twitter, and these services will remain extremely popular, but the overall excitement and expansion of these networks will start to slow down.

Well those are my 2009 predictions, and I think most are pretty solid.  Do you agree with these?  Leave your comments and let me know.