In the world of technology, the past year has seen a changing of the guard in almost every sector. Personal computers, mobile devices, gaming and Internet services have all seen incredible developments, with new challengers taking the place of old incumbents. As we move into the new year, we'll meet a vastly different tech landscape from the one we knew in years gone by.
Starting in the PC space, 2013 will be the year that Lenovo steps beyond previous market leader Hewlett-Packard and assumes the role of the world's most dominant computer maker. By some accounts, the Chinese manufacturer may have already done so (U.S. research firm Gartner says it has). Next year will also be the year that consumers get their first real taste of Windows 8, as they buy more and more PCs with Microsoft's new OS. There's some debate over whether or not consumers are ready for the new Modern tiled user interface (previously called Metro UI). But I expect that customers here in Japan will be even more reluctant to get aboard with this change, especially on the enterprise side, where adoption of new tech can be downright glacial.
Perhaps I'm just being optimistic, but I think that with the potential confusion around consumer adoption of Windows 8, some PC maker will finally get behind the Ubuntu operating system as a way to differentiate itself. This could be Dell, if its Project Sputnik initiative to reinvent computers works out. The company is already selling its XPS 13 Developer Edition laptop, and it would be great to see more PCs emerge from this sort of mold. Taiwan's Asus, which dabbled with Ubuntu in 2012 as well, might be another to try this. Of course, then there's Google with its Chromebook laptop products, too.