Browser Wars II

And you thought it was all over with the crushing defeat of Netscape at the hands of Microsoft'sInternet Explorer (IE) in the 90s.

Despite IE's continued world dominance in market share, expect to see a lot of renewed competition in the browser industry. (Ever expect to see the words "competition" and "browser" in the same sentence again?)

The three mainstream Windows-based browsers -- IE, Firefox and Opera -- are all coming out with major upgrades in 2006: Firefox 2.0, code-named The Ocho; IE 7; and Opera 9, code-named Merlin.

And while UI improvements and new widgets in the browsers will certainly get an excited giggle out of technophiles, it's the stuff running under the hood that will bring the biggest changes to the way Internet surfers view Web pages.

For years, Web development has been stymied by the lowest common denominator in browser development, namely IE. While Firefox and Opera have a growing number of Web standards in its code, which allows developers to create more dynamic and interactive Web pages, most of the world still uses IE. Microsoft's browser has been idling somewhat since the launch of IE 6 in 2001 (Windows XP SP2 doesn't count, it was mainly a security update).

Expect to see Web pages next year that take advantage of some of the Web standards getting incorporated into the browser: notably in HTML, full support for CSS1 and pieces of CSS2.

Opera's CEO Jon von Tetzchner said the Web standards inclusions in the next upgrade by his company, the Mozilla Foundation and Microsoft are good for everyone and creates some welcome competition. Opera 9 will support XSLT 1.0, XPath 1.0, Web Forms 2.0, Web Apps 1.0 and others.

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"All of this is going to be pushing the limits of what you can do with browsers, and it's hotter than it has been for quite some time," he said. "Obviously, Microsoft hasn't done too much in the past six, seven years, so them coming with a new browser is excellent news."

Time For Integration

There will be a serious period of software integration following recent purchases in the software space, particularly in identity management and applications, thanks to such vendors as Oracle.

In 2005, Oracle bought ID management players Oblix, Thor Technologies and OctetString, as well as business applications makers Retek and Siebel Systems.

HP just picked up Trustgenix and BMC acquired Calendra and OpenNetwork.

All of the deals made the year exciting to watch, with nary a week going by without insiders wondering what might be purchased next. And so begins the drudgery: Integrating disparate code bases into entrenched portfolios.

While Oracle and HP have left the door open to future acquisitions, expect a quieter year in terms of purchases, as developers crunch ones and zeroes to form-fit new software into their companies' portfolios.

And A-Politicking We Go

The White House. In 2004, President Bush set a national goal of affordable broadband access for all Americans in three years. In 2005, the president didn't once publicly utter the word broadband, what with the Plame investigation, Iraq and other distractions throughout the year. There's no reason to believe that will change much in 2006.

Congress. Unlike the White House, Capitol Hill lawmakers will mention broadband over and over again, as it will play well on the campaign trail. Like the White House, though, little will get done about spyware, data breach notifications or telecom reform. What little tech-related legislation that does get passed will have little or no impact. When you think of Congress boldly going forth on technology policy, think CAN-SPAM.

The FCC. In the face of no direction from either the president or Congress, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will continue to press forward in its muddled way on Voice over IP (define)and spectrum issues. Of course, each ruling by the FCC will be challenged in lengthy court delays by whichever ox is being gored. Just think more years of the dreaded regulatory uncertainty.

The Year of UWB

Could 2006 be the year that Ultra Wideband starts to make personal area networks happen in the home for tech-savvy and media-loving consumers?

If Freescale, the semi-conductor spin-off of Motorola, has any say, it will. The company has said it hopes to see UWB transmission rates hit a full gigabit per second, and it hopes to get its chipsets in more devices in 2006.

Plus, after two wireless networking industry groups, The WiMedia Alliance and the MultiBand OFDM Alliance Special Interest Group (MBOA-SIG), merged in 2005, some of the squabbling over formats and protocols could be streamlined for products to ship.

Then, there's that 802.11n high-speed spec for the somewhat competing Wi-Fi wireless networking standard. UWB supporters say both have their place, but that UWB is better-suited for home networking and zipping media from one TV to another device.

UWB's transmission rates, at 40 to 50 megabits per second, as well as its ability to support networking via the Bluetooth standard, puts it in a position to make headway in the home in 2006.

Then There's WUSB

We also think wireless USB (WUSB) will be the most "visible" new technology of 2006. There are countless billions of peripheral devices connected by USB cables. With WUSB, all those cables could disappear. The WUSB specification which was formalized in 2005 and is backwards compatible with existing USB connections. That means the countless billions of USB peripherals have a simple wireless upgrade path. The first WUSB devices are expected by the second quarter of 2006. Look for the technology to gradually displace Bluetooth and Infrared as the dominant wireless interconnect for personal devices and peripherals.

Rhymes With Jive

Speaking of digital homes, where better to make use of broadband and VoIP than in the living room?

Those who haven't heard of Viiv by year's end will be few and far between. Intel is planning a huge multi-million-dollar campaign for its new consumer brand for computers designed for the so-called digital living room.

The prediction here is that we'll finally see some interesting designs for home PCs based on the Viiv spec, which includes Microsoft's Multimedia Windows Media Center Edition software.

Certainly we've come a long way from the Web TV fiasco, but 2006 will not be the year consumers flock en masse to get a Viiv in their living room. Why bother when all the fun's in the den where the new Xbox 360, or even PlayStation 3 when it ships this spring, reside?

Built-in surround sound, slick design, the latest Intel dual-core processors, remote-control access, and other nice touches, such as QuickResume, will attract a healthy niche of early adopters for Viiv. But Intel is hardly promising the moon out the gate:

"We think we're just touching the tip of the iceberg with what's possible," said Eric Kim, the chip giant's chief marketing officer, in a recent briefing on Viiv.

And as Viiv pushes forward, a plus for business users: some of the innovation will no doubt eventually find its way into enterprise desktops. It would be nice, for example, to be able to just turn your PC instantly back on with Viiv's QuickResume feature.

Dollars For Video On Demand

Other media battles lurk in the digital arena, too.

Telcos may be battling cable providers and their "triple play" of video, data and VoIP services, but cable also has to battle the satellite cable providers.

They will look to make more money from video on demand in 2006, as more programming is made available and more cable subscribers switch over to digital cable. For now, VOD isn't making as much money as cable providers had hoped, but Web publishers are seeing ad dollars where video on demand sits on their sites.

So where does that leave the Baby Bells to compete with cable in the triple-play derby? They're already upgrading their older DSL (define)and fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) (define)networks for just that.

SBC's fiber rollout plans are, well, rolling out, and Verizon has said it will spend $3 billion to roll out fiber in the next two years. Watch the VoD race heat up in 2006.

SCO v. IBM Keeps Going, And Going, And Going

This is not so much a prediction as an acknowledgment of the inevitable back-and-forth nature of the Unix company's years-long lawsuit against Big Blue. Internetnews.com expects to see a lot more paperwork.

The SCO Groupfiled suit in 2003 against IBM, claiming the software giant misappropriated some of its licensed Unix code to beef up the Linux kernel.

Like a deranged legal Energizer bunny, lawyers from both sides continue to pump out motions and responses to motions as they wend their ways through the discovery phase of the trial. The paper trail is likely indecipherable to anyone who isn't:

• a. an IBM lawyer
• b. a SCO lawyer
• c. one of the many enthusiastic IBM supporters at Groklaw.net

Discovery isn't expected to wrap up until March 2006, three years after the original SCO complaint, with the SCO/IBM trial set to begin February 2007.

As to what to expect, anything is possible. While public opinion suggests SCO's best option is to settle this before it goes to trial based on the lack of evidence presented so far -- if IBM would allow that at this stage of the game -- executives at the company are still gunning for a trial.

Darl McBride, SCO president and CEO, said during the company's fiscal fourth quarter 2005 conference call last week that they've made good progress during the discovery phase of the trial so far.

While the courts have denied a few requests, he believes they have established a sound basis for their claims, finding what he says are 217 "separate and distinct" disclosures of its Unix code by IBM.

"We believe we will have a compelling case to be presented at trial in early 2007."

Other Open Source Picks

Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 is expected to debut early in the New Year and Red Hat Enterprise Linux version 5 is expected mid year. Though others like the DCC Alliance and Mandriva will continue to try and challenge the Linux duopoly it's unlikely that they'll make much headway in 2006.

Calls for a new development branch of the Linux kernel will likely intensify as the 2.6 kernel continues to grow larger and larger. OpenSolaris and Solaris 10 will likely be more virulent competitors to Linux than they were in 2005 causing more than a few existing Solaris users to rethink Linux migrations.

Contributing Writers: Clint Boulton, Tim Gray, Colin Haley, Erin Joyce, Sean Michael Kerner, Susan Kuchinskas, Roy Mark, David Needle, Catherine Pickavet, Jim Wagner.