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With 2011 leaving technology in overall good shape, with players from chips to software, computing and consumer electronics humming, the outlook for 2012 is even better.
Assuming the U.S. economy continues its slow recovery, Europe starts to stabilize under new economic and lending agreements and fast-growing markets in places like China, India, Indonesia, Brazil and Russia keep up the pace, prospects could be far better for 2012.
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Technology companies are sitting on tons of good new ideas, perhaps as much as $1 trillion in cash and investments for new products and acquisitions and ready to conquer new territory.
Looking ahead, here are some predictions and a forecast to be read with a grain of salt and the reminder that many will be wrong:
On a revenue basis, IBM may regain the crown as No. 1 technology company. Strictly by revenue, there's a good chance IBM may recapture the biggest annual revenue crown from Hewlett-Packard. For its year ended Oct. 31, HP reported annual revenue of $127.4 billion, while IBM for the nine months ended Sept. 30 reported revenue of $77.4 billion.
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Watch 2012 results. Meanwhile, Apple, which reported fiscal 2011 revenue of $108.3 billion also looks headed to remain in the above-$100 billion club.
Women tech CEOs will have a higher profile than ever. Not that there will be so many, with Meg Whitman, 55, in her first year as HP CEO; Ursula Burns, 53, remaining at Xerox; Stephanie DiMarco, 53, continuing at Advent Software and Hon Hai Precision Industries' Terry (Tai-ming) Gou, 61. But IBM installs Virginia Rometty, 53, as its first woman CEO in 101 years on Jan. 1.
Some top-level women might leave to be the boss elsewhere, such as IBM's enterprise VP Linda Sanford; Oracle co-president Safra Catz ; Ann Livermore, until recently HP's Executive VP for Enterprise and Padmasree Warrior, Chief Technology Officer of Cisco Systems.
It will be interesting to see if new Apple CEO Tim Cook finally appoints a woman to top management, something Apple has lacked for years after Deborah Coleman left as CFO.
Microsoft will finally roll out Windows 8. It's been in development forever and is said to be scheduled for rollout by the third quarter of 2012. Besides upgrading PCs and laptops, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has said it also will be targeted for the tablet market. Could Microsoft speed up delivery? Answers may come at the January Consumer Electronics Show.
Apple will lose tablet market share. Apple's estimated 74 percent share of the global tablet market will decline with new entrants from Amazon, Samsung Electronics, Sony, Lenovo Group, Microsoft, Google and others. When Apple introduces an update to the iPad2 (the iPad3?) it will be interesting to see if it keeps the old model but discounts it heavily, much as it did with the iPhone 4.
Global consumers can only benefit if tablets get cheaper as they also become more versatile. Watch for Amazon Kindles to be refreshed and made more sophisticated and iPad-like. Watch for HP to reenter the sector with a Windows 8 Tablet or some kind of Palm OS.
Intel's 22-nanometer "Ivy Bridge" chips will spark a new era. These tiniest-ever 3D transistor chips are Intel's latest effort to deal with former Chairman Gordon E. Moore's 1965 "Moore's Law" that the number of components in an integrated circuit had doubled every 10 years and would continue "for at least 10 years."
Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel has them in production in U.S. plants and rivals such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing may not be far behind as well as IBM, Toshiba and STMicroelectronics, which have announced similar efforts. Advanced Micro Devices already has a 28-nanometer graphics chip, Radeon.
