The BlackBerry maker looked increasingly out of its depth through 2011 as the mobile computing revolution was advanced by Apple, Google and Microsoft. If the company isn't bought then it's future looks bleak, with the current execs showing little sign that they can turn things around.
In 2012 we’ll discover if Google is a dangerous monopoly. Its dominance of web search is almost complete, but the question under consideration by the European Commission is whether Google abuses that dominance to promote its sideline businesses at the expense of rivals. The evidence that has emerged so far doesn’t look great for Google. Eric Schmidt is already making conciliatory noises in the hope of reaching a settlement and avoiding the enormously costly and distracting legal quagmire that so damaged Microsoft in the late 1990s.
Rumour has it Apple will launch a television set in 2012. Whether it is a stand-alone television set, an extension of the current Apple TV box or an iMac with added Apple TV features remains to be seen. Expect to see something launched in the US by the autumn.
Amazon launched the Kindle Fire in the US at the end of 2011. Despite some mixed reviews, the budget tablet has been selling well - at least, according to the limited information that the online bookseller has made available. We had to wait a long time before the Kindle ereader was released in Britain but it's a fairly safe bet that we will see the Kindle Fire here before the end of 2012.
Next year YouView, the long-awaited internet connected TV set top box from the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Five, BT, Arqiva, and TalkTalk, is finally expected to make its much overdue debut. It had been billed to launch in 2010, but has been best with delays due to technical glitches. This year Lord Alan Sugar was brought on board to ferry the process along and get the boxes onto shop shelves. The proposition, self-styled as the next generation of Freeview, is meant to be a well executed product – but it remains to be seen what consumer appetite there is for YouView.
Google+ is unlikely to beat Facebook as the world’s leading social network anytime during 2012. Plus after Facebook’s highly anticipated $100bn float, it will have a major war chest to invest in the site and spend on improving its reach. In 2012 Google+ is more likely to become another feature of the Google suite of web products, rather than a killer social network which can rival Facebook’s dominance.
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