Windows 8: Office killer app

Now that Microsoft Windows 8 is globally available many people wonder if it will be the next Windows Vista or the next Mobile 5. Well, I am not that pessimistic and I am sure W8 will be adopted by at least 50% of the desktop users. As tablet use increases in enterprises, I am confident W8 tablets will gain its share. Ok, it will never outnumber iPads (not even reach 10% market share), but the full Office license will be the killer app for touch tablets. This is where we were waiting for, it is the next step for laptop users and a cool step.
So my predICTion is that more than 60% of laptop users will swap it for a touch tablet with W8 within 4 years!

Pred-ICT-ion: Layar.com is heading the wrong AR direction

Layar (www.layar.com) started as a very succesfull augmented reality company, by launching their layar browser and content services. But, nowadays, they are fully focussing on adding digital content to print. And in my opinion, that is a great mistake. They should deliver the best environment for augmented reality content creation, for in the near future several interesting devices will become available for consumers, like smart digital windows, AR-glasses and other see-through equipment. My pred-ICT-ion is that Layar will lose ground to companies like Google and Microsoft within 2 years and. I don't understand why Layar is directing to digital print. Pressure of their investors....?

Coders are a dying breed?

Last week our company Centric held a so-called RAD-race, a one-night competition for developers to show their skills on their favorite development platforms. The technology used by our developers is listed below:

1. Microsoft C# .Net using Centric proprietary software factory
2. Microsoft SharePoint 2010 + NinTex
3. Pronto / Bre4all: Centric proprietary software factory, model driven, 4GL-like
4. Microsoft LightSwitch
5. Grails, high-productivity web framework based on the Groovy language
6. <m_twize>: Centric proprietary software factory, model driven, 4GL-like
7. Mendix, see website, agile application development without coding
8. Microsoft C#.Net + NuGet

The assigment consisted of 3 parts:

1. Develop an application for registering software components
1. All CRUD functions
2. Additional processes like alerting owners, requests for change
2. Add multi-tenancy to the application
1. Security is important
3. Add connections to Twitter, Yammer or Facebook

The winning team used SharePoint 2010 with NinTex. Second team used...SharePoint 2010 with NinTex. Third team used Mendix. These teams didn't produce a single line of code!
Our proprietary software factories failed to integrate with social media, but did well for the remainder. The teams using LightSwitch and Grails finished last.

As the one who created the assignment I was really surprised. Can coding no longer keep up with modern development frameworks? We did not perform scientific research nor did we try more complicated tests. But the results made me think.
Let me add a pred-ICT-ion: within 5 years application development will be a practice performed without coding. Coding will be needed to build the frameworks application developers will use and programming will become a high-level profession only a few will attain.