Firstly I would just like to thank you all for reading this site (which is 7 months old now) for giving me feedback on what to improve and for sharing ideas.

2009 has been a pretty big year for Microsoft where they had to get thing rights and for the most part they did. Windows 7 has been and continues to be a roaring success and the new Zune software and Zune HD have been well received, if only by a small number of people in the US. I hope Microsoft are able to continue this way of thinking and high standard in 2010 where we can hope to see some more well thought out, well designed and well executed products.

Coming Soon

There are few products we will see launch over the next year.

Office 2010 (first half of the year)

I am currently using and loving the Office 2010 Beta and find it good improvement to 2007. Other than all applications using the Ribbon I don’t think there is anything in the suite that will require users of 2007 to upgrade to 2010 other lots of small improvements and additions.

Another aspect of the launch of the new Office suite is the Web Apps that will allow people to create and edit files in browsers with a set of limited Office tools, this to me will be one of the best features of the new suite.

Windows Live Wave 4 (first half of the year)

Regular readers to this site will know that I love Windows Live and am constantly looking for any news and predicting things we could see in the suite, unfortunately we don’t know very much at all about the new wave of services and applications. I believe there will be a release of the new wave in January, whether that be a beta or final version I don’t know.

Windows Mobile 7 (second half of the year)

Windows Mobile 7 will definitely be released in 2010 and it is likely to have a beta version release in the first half of the year, but again very little information is known about what Microsoft plan to add to their mobile OS.

Internet Explorer 9

We know Microsoft are working on the next version of Internet Explorer and it will use hardware acceleration to enhance browsing, but again little is known about what else Microsoft plan to add.

Silverlight 4

Silverlight 4 is already in beta and we can expect a full release later in 2010

Keeping it updated

Bing

Microsoft will continue to work on their search engine to keep it competitive with Google and once the Yahoo deal comes into affect we could expect to see a greater presence of Bing on the internet.

Windows Mobile 6.X

It sounds like Microsoft will be continuing to update the current version of Windows Mobile in 2010, before the release of Windows Mobile 7, as information about 6.5.3 is beginning to leak out.

Is it too much to ask?

Internationalisation of Zune

I would love to see the Zune service come to the rest of the world so I could buy my music through the service and could buy a Zune HD, officially supported, in the UK. I expect that at least the software and Zune.net will go international in 2010 as we know Microsoft will release a Zune app for Windows Mobile with its next release, could be 6.5.3 or 7.

Courier

When information and videos about Microsoft’s Courier concept it the internet in September there was much support and lusting for the device and I hope that a device taking on a similar form and functionality comes to the markets in 2010, I know for me it would be brilliant in lectures.

Project Natal

We know Microsoft plan to release this accessory for the Xbox to allow controller free gaming but I think it would be great if the technologies weren’t restricted to only the Xbox but Microsoft used the techs as a platform and brought aspects of it too various consumer electronics, would allow some great innovations.

Cloud PC

Now that Microsoft is serious about Cloud computing in the way of Windows Azure it is likely we will see more services from Microsoft accessible via the internet. I made a prediction a while back that we might see a Cloud PC from Microsoft that allows people to have single place to launch Web Apps and access their online storage from the internet instead of using a long list of bookmarks. Originally I thought this would only be useful for Office Web Apps, but thinking about it I think we might see some Windows Live Web Apps and maybe even a Zune Web App, allowing users to play their music on a PC anywhere in the world.

Trends of 2010

I think we will see a continued growth in Windows 7, Bing and Silverlight in 2010 but Internet Explorer 8 and Windows Mobile will continue to lose market share; with the new releases they might start to gain market share by the end of the year.

Zune will be a fairly slow mover unless Microsoft do something major with it whereas Xbox will continue to do well over the next year with some great games lined up for it and the release of Project Natal.

There will be many surprised in 2010 both good and bad for us Microsoft followers, I know I am looking forward to what ever the new year has to offer.

I wish you all the very best in 2010!