Recap of Blackfriars 2005 technology predictions.

At the beginning of the year, we made some predictions about what we'd see in consumer technology at CES 2005. I thought it might be interesting to recap the predictions and talk about how well reality matched up with those predictions. So here we go.

1. Ever bigger flat screen TVs. The transition to flat panel displays has begun, and there is no indication it will stop any time soon. While some are predicting a $1,000 flat panel TV by 2006, I don't expect that to happen. Instead, we'll see more pixels and larger panels while leaving prices in the $2,000 to $10,000 range. I think this one was mostly right. We did see some $999 flat panels on Black Friday, mostly in the 37-inch and 42-inch EDTV areas, but most of the action was in the sub-$2,500 42-inch HDTVs and in the below $4,000 50-inch HDTVs.
   



2. Ever smarter digital music players. The iPod revolution is in full swing, and I expect a host of new music products to complement the iPod ecosystem and compete with it as well. But I also expect more smart playback systems that observe your music preferences and choose music that you like just as Bose's uMusic does. Also true. Apple introduced Party Shuffle to account for user preferences. Bose extended uMusic into more of their lines too. And Apple will probably sell more iPods this year than it sold in the three years leading up to it.
   



3. Tons of digital imaging products.The hottest products after iPods this Christmas were digital cameras and printers, and every company in that space will be showing next-generation models. While I got the call right, I have to say my writing didn'g follow through. Digital cameras remain hot, and after iPods are still the most searched for items on Froogle. Digital SLRs are now in the $500 range, and most major camera manufacturers have multiple lines of products for every need and price range. The big development that I missed was the rise of digital image kiosks for the likes of CVS and WalMart; that has turned into a multi-million dollar market by itself. But my biggest surprise this year: despite their popularilty, I didn't post a single blog entry just about digital cameras.
   



4. A format war for the next generation of DVDs. HD-DVD and Blu-Ray/DVD will fight it out for the hot Christmas products of 2006. Expect to see the two consortia supporting those formats to conduct a war of licensing for the next couple of years. This one has been huge. While I would claim that HD-DVD is on the ropes, the battle isn't over yet, and a lot will depend on which products gain traction next year. However, my call remains: Blu-Ray wins -- big time.
   



5. Lots of wireless audio products. Everyone hates wiring their house just to have music, but it takes a lot more than an 802.11b wireless ethernet link to make wireless audio plug and play. I expect to see a host of home theatre systems and media servers to sport wireless speaker links for both in-room and whole home audio. While this prediction came true (Panasonic, Sony, and Bose all have wireless speaker systems on the market now), again, I didn't write any posts about them. Bad me.
   

So the tally for 2005 was three right and two right, but unrecognized. We'll have to do better in 2006 and cover all our predictions throughout the year. Look for our 2006 predictions in the coming week.

Technorati Tags: Analysis, Apple, CES, Consumer Electronics, Digital home, Digital imaging, Gadgets, Marketing, Plasma, HD-DVD, Blu-Ray, puppy, Video iPod, Wireless audio