It’s that time of year again where we look at the hopes and dreams of the IT industry in the new year, crush the rhetoric and break it down into what will actually happen.

I’m not done with my predictions for 2012 yet.  After making my first six predictions in part one of this series, there’s more to go. Check out the remainder of my predictions below:

7. Smartphones will account for more than 1/3rd of all phones by the end of 2012

It’s time for smartphones to become a dominant device in the everyday computing of the majority of the world’s citizens.

If you’ll pardon the approximate numbers, it has been said that global smartphone share vs total mobile phone sales has grown from approximately 19% at the beginning of 2011 to around 25-26% today.  I’m willing to predict that the velocity of that market share growth will accelerate faster in 2012 and that smartphone market share will be greater than 33% in twelve months time.

The biggest proponent in this movement, above all else. will be prepaid phones.  It is already possible now to pick up a semi-decent Android phone from the supermarket and charge it up with a prepaid SIM every once in a while and there is no reason why a large number of these post-paid hold-outs won’t switch over to cheap smartphones in 2012.  Phones will keep getting cheaper and desirable to people wanting an app store on their phone for access to cheap entertainment such as casual games.

It’s likely that Facebook will also enter the smartphone market with a heavily modified version of Android and attack this market too – low end, outright purchasing of devices with no obligations to a carrier.

What I’m not willing to guess is how much higher than 33% that number will go to, though.  There’s no telling just how explosive the smartphone market will be but it’s worth counting on the fact that it will be a big story next year – and being much bigger than this one (if you can believe it).

8. Adobe will be put up for sale

This is one of my bolder predictions in this list but I just can’t shake this feeling that Adobe will get into big trouble next year – Nokia-sized, strategy changing trouble.

This all starts with cloud computing.  Adobe do a lot of talk about being one of the early innovators in cloud computing services but in reality, that’s bullshit.  With the collapse of Flash (and Flex), Adobe have lost a lot of leverage to put out platforms where their boxed software can be sold to developers buying online services from Adobe to connect their code to Adobe-powered online datacenters.

In this new world of connected experiences, Adobe only have half of the solution and it will take a sale of the company to someone like IBM, Microsoft or Google to match up with a business that can spread their online services far and wide to back up the projects that Adobe developers are creating projects with.  If Adobe’s shareholders are smart, they’ll jump ship before their value starts tanking – which means getting some movement before Windows 8 ships.

We’ll see what happens with this one.

9. Apple will enter the services business

In 2012, Apple will continue their pursuit of taking each and every dollar made off of the iOS platform out of the hands of middlemen and into the back pockets of the company.

As it currently stands, Apple are a company that get a lot of “one off” sales from customers with the sale of phones, tablets and computers.  Whilst many people re-purchase their devices each year as Apple release new products, iOS device sales can hardly be called residual income.

So, 2012 will become the year that Apple look to make a steady stream of additional revenue out of their customers after selling them devices that enable that.  With the impending release of Apple’s own mapping service, the early days for iCloud and iTunes Match and the much rumoured TV show subscription service, there are many ways that Apple can sell pay-per-month services to customers and monetise their platform to the extreme.

This, of course, will come at the expense of content and application providers that have been looking to sell software and services off of the iOS platform themselves.  I’m sure there will be a bit of a stink kicked up more than a few times in 2012 about Apple competing against its “partners” and that the response will be the same each time – Boo hoo.

10. TiVo will exit the Australian market

This one is as simple as this – 2012 is the year of the Smart TV, with content services built directly in the television or via an internet connection.  External devices plugged into a television will become a casualty of war, one that TiVo can’t win.

Whilst the service is strong in countries like the US, it has already left the UK due to sales problems over there. Here in Australia, the service is struggling and is likely to shut up shop and abandon this market.

Simply put, there is no business model for the TiVo here and next to no motivation for any consumer to want to pay several hundred dollars for a device that allows them to record TV shows and watch movies on demand. This is an area dominated by Foxtel and the T-Box where customers can get the box for free and have access to those same kinds of features.  TiVo simply can’t compete against that and when battling a juggernaut like Telstra, their chances are slim and none.

The next pages of the history books have already been turned and are awaiting the ink that writes the TiVo as a member of the past.

11. Kodak will go bankrupt and eventually be sold for patents

This is another easy prediction but an inevitable one when you think about it.

Kodak is a bit of an afterthought these days but the company is still around – their primary market remains in film and selling disposable cameras.  They have attempted to sell memory cards and all that sort of stuff but their primary business is lame at best.

With the smartphone wars going into overdrive in 2012, it’s likely that a major tech company, perhaps even a mobile phone manufacturer, will look to buy Kodak as a defensive play in the patent wars.  I’m willing to bet that almost every smartphone on the market with a built-in camera is currently violating a Kodak patent as of today and that this will be shopped to the majors for a high sale price.  It would make a lot of sense for Kodak to simply sit back, allow smartphone sales to do well and then look for a buyer who doesn’t want to lose that war.

Any way this goes down though, it’s likely that Kodak will go bankrupt next year.  Wither this means the company selling itself or its assets being sold in a bankruptcy court remains to be seen.  If an asset sale happens after the collapse of Kodak, though, we might not see an actual sale of their IP until after 2012, which would be a bummer.

12. There will be a talent drain at Facebook

With Facebook going public next year, it is likely that a large number of Facebook employees are staying at the company for the sole reason of waiting for their shares in the company to vest so that they can cash out and hit the eject button.

In 2012, it’s likely that Facebook employees will do just that – sell their shares at a $100 billion+ company valuation, make a few million and then go work for a startup.  Life in Facebook will simply be boring once the company is public as their pursuit of profit will become a regulatory-enforced priority for the company.

Nerds like glory, not shareholder profit.

13. Netflix will be sold

We’re not all that familiar with Netflix in Australia, but in 2012, we will be.  It’s likely that Netflix will make headlines as a multi-billion purchase of one of the major tech companies in the US as part of the brewing Smart TV wars.

What Apple proved in the smartphone wars was that content is king – the iPhone has the apps and therefore has the sales of devices.  For Smart TV’s, each top 3 tech company – Apple, Microsoft and Google – will want to buy their way in to gaining a very large catalogue of TV Shows and movies to push to hungry consumers of content via their specially designed TV’s.  Whoever owns Netflix will have a far greater chance of winning the Smart TV war in the US and consequently, have a head start in global sales too.

My popcorn box is already warm with excitement over watching this bidding war unfold next year.

14. Tablet prices will spiral towards the $200 mark

This has kind of already happened with the release of the Amazon Kindle Fire but in 2012, it’s likely that Google will get in on the act and finally differentiate Android tablets against the iPad by forcing them to be significantly cheaper options.

Of course, they’ll do this by releasing their own dirt-cheap tablet, which will cause Android tablet manufacturers to follow suit or exit the market.  No matter how the goes down, a price war is likely to happen and it will be brutal.

Amazon, meanwhile, will continue to cause disruptions of their own and are likely to at least half the price of the Kindle Fire within the next 12 months.  It might even become free for US citizens next year, but more likely in 2013.

As for Windows tablets, this will put the squeeze on Microsoft to sell Windows 8 for a very small amount of money to manufacturers and cause them some financial pain – which has got to be Google’s primary goal almost just as much as fighting back against the iPad.  This is probably why the ARM version of Windows 8 will drop the standard shell and be Metro only – Windows 8 on ARM will be only for tablets and will be sold far cheaper to manufacturers than Windows 8 for x86.  This will allow Microsoft to continue to sell Windows at a more expensive price for regular computers.

Tech predictions for 2011

If you’re interested to see how well I did last year, you can check out my predictions for 2011 here and see how well I scored with them in the rearview mirror article here.

Related articles

• Grading the OzTechNews tech predictions for 2011 (oztechnews.com)
• 16 predictions for mobile in 2012 (gigaom.com)
• 2012 Tech predictions from IDG editors around the world (macworld.com)
• In Memoriam: Tech Products We Lost Too Soon (allthingsd.com)
• Analysts flock to advise Apple: Tarry on iPad 3 and buy TiVo (slashgear.com)