TechLahore

Back in December 2009, I had come up with a list of predictions for 2010. I may have gotten a little lucky this year, because many of these predictions were spot-on to an uncanny degree. Here’s how I fared:

Political predictions

I don’t see Asif Zardari making it through 2010. I think he will be deposed as President.

Couldn’t have been more wrong on this. And for the second time in a row. El Presidente has shown himself to be a better survivor than I am a Futurist!

Though many political pundits talk about it, I don’t believe there will be mid-term elections this year. Whatever changes occur will be with individual and will not displace the entire post-2008 election scenario.

And thus it happened. No mid term elections, even though last year many pundits were proclaiming that this was a near guaranteed event.

Gen. Kiyani is scheduled to retire close to the end of the year, but I believe he will receive a rare 1 year extension of service. However it happens, I don’t believe we will see him retiring this year.

This happened too. Though the extension he received was even more generous than I had thought. Gen. sahib will be at the helm of affairs for another 3 years.

The surge in Afghanistan will not work. If not by the end of 2010 then in 2011 the US will have to sit and talk to elements of the Taliban. The commitment of these forces will prove politically costly for President Obama.

Has this not happened to the letter? Now we have news of a Taliban office opening in Turkey which Mr. Karzai has already supported and in fact requested the Turkish Government for. And Pakistan has come out in support of this initiative as well. We all know that the discussions with the Taliban have been initiated by NATO and not from a position of strength.

Security and the situation in northwest Pakistan

As I had mentioned last year, the Army certainly had an operation up their sleeve. What happened in Swat and South Waziristan was the result of meticulous planning that had occured for months prior to the execution of either campaign. I believe these campaigns will begin to bear fruit in 2010 in the form of a reduction in security incidents in Pakistan. While there will be a definite tapering off in 2010, the nihilists will continue to make their presence felt now and then. Unfortunately this is a process which will take a little bit of time to completely unfold. But 2010 will inshaAllah be more secure than 2009 and quite measurably so.

There was a 35%  reduction in the number of terrorist attacks in Pakistan in 2010, as compared to 2009. The number of people who perished in these attacks was roughly the same, but that was due mainly to the terrorists no longer having the reach they once did. The number of attacks in major cities was also markedly reduced. As I said, the process of securing Pakistan in light of what is going on in Afghanistan will take some time, but certainly, 2010 was an improvement.

The military will continue significant presence in Swat, Waziristan and will expand into other tribal agencies, expanding the writ of the government in an area that was always free of federal or provincial law enforcement since 1947. The action being conducted in these areas is certainly against the foreign nihilists who have taken refuge there and those who would seek to support them, but it also marks an expansion of writ into areas where it never existed previously (by design and by a 1947 era agreement which has clearly outlived its relevance).

In fact, the only agency where the Army has not entered in force is North Waziristan. And there’s a lot behind that, so I’ll avoid the urge to take that segue. The homes of Taliban terrorists have been converted to Girls’ Schools in the FATA area and the writ of the Government has been extended to areas that no central government has ever controlled in hundreds of years.

Pakistan will continue to implement its strategic weapons programs and reap the fruits of investment in tactical weapons development. In addition to the first JF-17 squadron being weaponized and fully operationalized, we will see the arrival of F-16 Block 52 (Yes, there will be no last minute ‘hitches’), additional Saab Eireye AWACS aircraft, significant progress on the FC-20 fighter program, new air-to-air weapons such as the AMRAAM, and air to ground munitions and the Sniper targeting pod. In addition, the missile program will continue at full speed and more details will emerge regarding the 7,000km range Taimur ICBM. Pakistan will, however, not make any official announcements concerning this system. The much delayed Pakistan Navy next generation submarine deal will be finalized – there is a German vs. French situation going on at the moment but this will succesfully be navigated and a firm deal will take shape in 2010.

It is absolutely irrefutable that Pakistan has made tremendous strides forward in national defence. The only item from the list above that did not materialize was the Sub deal with Germany and/or France. In stead, we know hear that the PN is evaluating Chinese submarines. There are even rumours that the Chinese – in addition to providing a diesel fleet – may also lease a nuclear submarine to Pakistan (an SSGN). Too little is known about this thus far to elucidate much further, but things are definitely in the works.

As for the Taimur ICBM, piece parts have begun to fall into place. The most recent Hatf-V tests in December were rumoured to have included a MIRV (Multiple Re-entry Vehicles) warhead, which goes hand in hand with effective ICBM technology.

In addition to the list above, the Pakistan Air force also took delivery of Iluyshin air-to-air refuellers, Chinese AWACS, in addition to the Swedish Erieye aircraft and the SD-10 Beyond Visual Range Air to Air missile made significant progress in its SD-10B incarnation. The JF-17s will be armed with SD-10As for now as the standard BVR weapon, soon to be upgraded to the B model.

The F-16 Bl 52s were delivered on time, the JF-17 squadron is impressing people within the country as well as without. They participated in a static display at one of the world’s most famous airshows at Farnborough, in the UK, and then wowed crowds at China’s largest air event in Zhuhai.

Technology Predictions

There will be a near-breakout level of success with a Pakistani based mobile software company. At least one company will claim 250K users for its mobile products by the end of 2010. It is very likely that two will.

Pepper.pk announced that they have over 1 million users using their software products, but what’s more, Pepper’s Photo Editor software for the Blackberry made it to World #1 on AppWorld. So not only was there a breakout success, Pakistanis were literally on top of the world as far as this area of technology is concerned. I’ve never been happier at being right about something! More great things will come from Pepper and many other Pakistani technology startups in 2011 inshaAllah.

Netsol will see its fortunes improve in 2010 from a share price perspective. Hovering now at around $1, they can expect to be at least 25% better off by the end of the year.

Netsol fared even better! They are ending the year almost 50% up, at 1.50. They traded as high as $2 in 2010!

2010 is going to be a really bad year for Palm in terms of adoption of the Pre. I had predicted in 2008 that the Hail Mary piece of technology demo’d at CES fail for Palm. It has almost happened, but not quite completely yet. Palm will be relegated to a fourth tier player at best and 2010 will mark a signifciant reduction in its brand equity and influence.

I covered this one earlier this year… Palm got sold to HP and for not all that much. It’s Intellectual Property portfolio (patents) was probably worth 60-70% of the price paid by HP. So the operational parts of the business and the products themselves got valued at almost nothing. The good news is that HP will continue Palm products and may even be coming out with a Tablet leveraging the WebOS platform. Let’s see how it fares. Either way, let’s be clear that the Palm logos you see now don’t represent the good old Palm we knew and loved. That Palm is gone forever.

The Apple Tablet will be released and it will be a major hit. Even though I don’t like Apple, I will buy it  It will be iPhone OS based and will not have the full functionality of a Mac. eReader apps for it will be absolutely killer and very successful.

“Apple Tablet”… what a blast from the past! We all know now that the “Tablet” I spoke of in December 2009 ended up being the massively successful iPad. Yes, I bought it, and the product didn’t just achieve success, it launched a new market for similar devices. eReader apps were in fact a killer app, with Zinio launching digital magazine subscriptions straight to the iPad, and Apple itself showcasing iBooks as a major attraction. And aren’t you impressed that I even got the OS right? The iPad is indeed iOS based and not derived from OS X.

Windows Mobile 7 will come out in 2010 but will not be ‘all that’. It will take several updates and major enhancements to improve it. It will not reverse the market share trend away from Microsoft based phones that has taken hold over the last few years. Android will be the biggest gainer on the Smartphone side and will continue to whittle away at the Windows lead. Microsoft will undergo some pain in this area in 2010.

Yes, Phone7 did launch this year and thus far has sold about 1.5 million devices. In comparison, 300,000 Android devices are being sold every day. Phone7 may still impress, but certainly it hasn’t been a 2010 winner. Android, as I had predicted, went from 5% to 25% market share within a year! It is the biggest tech success story of 2010 in many ways.

ARM based devices and cheaper laptops will start to chip away at Netbook growth. There will at most 20% growth in the Atom based Netbook segment. A market which went from 0 units in 2007 to close to 40M units in 2009.

Netbooks slowed down immensely in 2010. In 2009, about 36.3 million units shipped and according to estimates in 2010 the number will be 40 million. As I had said, growth would be under 20%, and so it was. In 2011, this growth will decline even further.

Nokia is not being succesful in its move from basic and feature phones to truly smart phones. Their UI development and OS skills are not in the top 3 at all. I think this will be Nokia’s downfall… as smartphones become less expensive in markets outside the US, fewer people will choose Nokia as it will no longer provide the best experience primarily due to software reasons. From the low end, Samsung and LG feature phones will continue to become better thus providing competition to the traditional Nokia feature phone niche. All in all, 2010 will see other mobile companies grow at the expense of Nokia.

Wouldn’t change a thing even if I wrote the above earlier this morning instead of last year. As you can see from this IDC report, Nokia indeed lost market share. Samsung launched Bada, focused on foreign markets and the lower end of the smartphone cost spectrum. LG continues to grow. And from the top end you have the iPhone, Android and Windows Phone7 appearing as significant challengers to Nokia.

I was wrong on this one last year, and this is almost too easy for 2010, but then again – you never know! The Software Park Tower in Lahore will be completed and will become fully operational in 2010. It is going to be too expensive sq ft cost wise for most companies so move-ins will be slower than expected.

The building’s done, but rates are super expensive and I think move-ins will be few and far between until something is done to incent companies to move in.

Financial and Economic Predictions

The S&P will show a better than 7% gain in 2010. The Dow and NASDAQ will also come close to 10% gains.

The Dow was under 10,500 at the end of 2009, and is just under 11,600 now. That’s a better than 10% gain, as predicted. The NASDAQ went from just around 2,300 to over 2,650 at the end of 2010, that too is better than 10%. The S&P went from about 1125 to 1260 which handily beats the conservative 7% projection I made.

The recession in the US will be over officially – it technically is already – but you’ll hear common people saying it. There will be a net reduction in the unemployment rate in 2010.

Unemployment went down a mere .2% from Jan to December 2010, as shown here. There’s still a long way to go. The recession is technically over and the markets performed well, but until unemployment is reduced significantly, common people will continue to feel the pinch. I was only half right on this one.

The KSE, having recovered more rapidly than expected in 2009, will show more modest gains of in the 10-15% neighbourhood in 2010.

Well the KSE was the star of the year, showing better than a 20% gain and hitting a multi-year high. It did twice as well as the US markets. There’s something to be said for the fortitude of the Pakistani markets!

The Pakistani Rs. will continue to trade between 82 and 86 to the USD through the year.

Well, here’s the list of daily closes and we stayed under 87, so there you have it!

In summary, of 18 predictions, I was completely wrong on one (Asif Zardari) and half wrong on the US recession (ordinary people have yet to feel the effects of the technical data). Probably my most successful year of predictions thus far! And hopefully I haven’t jinxed myself by saying that.

So, stay tuned for the 2011 predictions. Watch this space!