Fortunately for the company, Intel isn't just about Itanium. Elderly geeks will find it upsetting to see the Intel logo change, but the focus on platforms -- by implication, end-user functionality -- over individual components is right in keeping with the times. Some of the company's non-processor bets are unlikely to do well; the company's wireless strategy seems doomed to take good ideas and abuse them, but there remains a strong strand of independent thought within the company that is capable of responding rapidly and effectively to market conditions.
Broadband is the technology that finally makes sense of the digital home, and if the media companies themselves can avoid mucking everything up then Viiv should become the platform of choice among developers. Of all the companies who've been dabbling in the idea, Intel may have got the timing right. That counts for an awful lot.
Bad Year: Open Source
The wind is out of the open source sails, as some of the big areas of interest show signs of losing momentum. Cisco's thrown open source out of Linksys' routers, because a closed proprietary system means cheaper hardware and, one presumes, fewer managerial headaches. Firefox seems to have hit its natural take-up limits. Even Microsoft's started to be intermittently nice about open source, which just cannot be a good sign, and while the nuclear option of European software patents hasn't happened yet there are plenty of skirmishes and no shortage of fingers on triggers.
There are still positive areas, such as Ubuntu doing so much work on usability and packaging, but it's hard to avoid the feeling that some of the structural issues propping up the Linux edifice are going to make it tough to beat it into mass-marketable shape any time soon.
Good Year: Open Standards
If open source is looking a bit battered, open standards are on the up. They've always been the key in hardware to making a market where innovation and competition can thrive and you only have to look at cases such as UWB where they've broken down to see how badly that can affect everyone's revenues.
The Massachusetts case has stirred up a lot of mud and heat, but it has got the main issues for software open standards out in the open. The arguments made there by the proponents of openness are strong and will be used in many forums around the world: the arguments against are unlikely to cut much ice with those who aren't already signed up to the proprietary way.
One area in particular is absolutely desperate for open standards: health care. It cannot afford to do things any other way, but remains a bastion of the closed and outdated.
Bad Year: DRM
The more they push it, the less we like it. While Sony is committing slow brand suicide by getting its name involved with the worst kind of corporate arrogance, the rest of the IT media industry isn't far behind. It shows no sign of realising that consumers hate DRM, which means that it will impose it as hard and as fast as it can. This is the perfect condition for a serious backlash, especially as the punters ask awkward questions about why their high definition DVD doesn't seem to work with their pricey high definition home cinema system when a cheapie DVD works just fine with their telly from Aldi.
Don't expect much more movement in the corporate sphere, where the concept of 'trusted computing' has run out of steam faster than you can run a spreadsheet showing how much capital expenditure is needed to ensure you can't send e-mails to your suppliers.
Nearly 30 years after he spat it out on a San Francisco stage, Johnny Rotten's "Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?" stands ready to serve as the epitaph for DRM. Get those safety pins sharpened.
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