ItSeemstoMe: 12 Predictions for 2004

If years had breath, 2003's would bring a buffalo to its knees. Yet it’s been the best of the miserable Millennium so far, it seems to me. I’m so ready to be done with 2003 that I’m posting my 2004 forecasts early. I’ve looked into my wireless crystal PDA and I’ve seen the future. From where I sit, it looks like we are about to have a kinder, gentler, more prosperous year. I see:

1. Led by Intel, the microprocessor industry will report overall growth in 2004 exceeding 30 percent, surpassing traditional analyst forecasts by half-again. The segment will prove to be a first move in a broad, healthy and prolonged recovery lasting at least three years.

2. Stock prices will, as usual, exceed profit growth. The average technology share price will rise by 40 percent, igniting a new period of irrational exuberance.

3. Corporate consolidations will escalate. Most will prove to be mistakes over time. Apple Computer and Sony will discuss merger. The transaction will fizzle when ego and structure get overly entangled. Hewlett Packard will stumble as the side effects from ingesting Compaq become increasingly evident. Sun Microsystems will argue throughout 2004 that it isn’t about to die. It will succumb in mid-2005. Having staved off the oracular hordes, PeopleSoft will suffer from digestive problems with its own acquisition of JD Edwards. Siebel will be acquired for its cash reserves.

4. A wiser, leaner venture capital community will discover that all things needed have not already been invented after all. Remembering, at last, that invention is the purview of the start ups, VCs will begin pouring cash into early phase companies founded by veteran teams with fresh ideas.

5. Somewhere, a Web services application will interoperate across multiple platforms at multiple sites, supporting hundreds-perhaps thousands- of users.

6. Federal efforts to tax the Internet will get serious. The industry will express righteous indignation rather than take the fight into the lobbies and backrooms where it could be won. Market analysts will come under increased governance scrutiny regarding their endorsement practices. Traditional publications will turn increasingly to bloggers for independent, candid insight of products, companies and markets. A second jury will split after the prosecution fails to prove Frank had any friends.

7. A stellar Google IPO will see share prices triple in the first week out of the gate. This success will open a new window of tech IPOs opportunity.

8. Corporate marketing budgets will be reinvigorated, outsourcing at levels not seen in three years. Marketers will increase focus on building reputations and relationships with prospects and customers. Credibility will eclipse logo identification in marketing programs. Pop-ups and banners that move and make noises will decline as brand marketers finally figure out that, instead of acquiring or retaining customers, this stuff just pisses people off.

9. After a desperate effort to draft Hilary fails, George Bush will be re-elected. His second term will usher in an unprecedented period of domestic and international human right abuse. A special prosecutor will begin investigating the first term administration’s legal breaches and deliberate misinformation during the pre-Iraq buildup.

10. One of the 7462 experts who declared, at infinite points in the last 36 months, that the technology crash has hit bottom will be proven right.

11. Biotech will provide the most startling headlines of 2004, announcing a cure or effective preventative for something that kills millions. When it becomes available several years later, it will be too expensive for anyone but the very wealthy.

12. The Red Sox will beat the Cubs in the 8th inning of the 7th game in the World Series

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