Looking Back at My Look Ahead

By Don Douglas

For a number of years now, Ive tried to make some educated, annual guesstimates on what will happen in the tech world. At the end of the year, I look back to see how I fared with my predictions. This has made for good conversation with a number of people Ive encountered, so I look forward to your feedback this year, too.

With 2013 nearly a wrap, its time to revisit last years predictions and surprises. Lets start with a review of stocks that were mentioned as M&A targets, plus Facebook, which I forecasted to rebound.

Highlights of 2013 On the Money

• Though none of this portfolio of particular stocks were actually acquired in 2013, they hummed along, crushing the market averages with a greater than 59 percent annualized return for this chosen portfolio of stocks.
• Facebook mounted a huge comeback and gained back the faith of many of those whom it had disappointed in 2012.
• Marissa Mayer is on a mission and did not disappoint investors as she made huge strides at Yahoo in 2013. Can she keep it up?
• Smartphone cameras improved greatly and were key features in many new models.
• The BlackBerry phone was not a game changer and BBRY quickly popped back up as an M&A target.
• Cloud war is in full progress as Amazon continues to cut prices and Wall Street seems to buy the strategy damaging many competitors in the process.
• Laws or a lack thereof slowing cloud adoption were commonplace. Imagine the even more impressive growth the cloud would have if businesses werent scared of compliance, case law and spying, for example.
• Microsoft released their new XBOX and made some positive steps on the mobile front.
• Crowdsourcing is now seen in tons of applications and has definitely hit the mainstream.

Lowlights of 2013 Early Though Still Possible

• BlackBerry still didnt get a deal done. I really thought they would seal a deal in 2013 in order to escape the drama that has so publicly haunted the company, and so they can focus on product development (even if it means killing their device business).
• Apple has blown my mind by not releasing anything worth highlighting except the iPad Air and an offering of a free OS upgrade. I really thought Apple would do something noteworthy on the mobile device or television front. It seems Samsung read Jobs comments about a smart TV and took the lead on making televisions easier to control. Tim Cook keeps teasing us that there are exciting items in the funnel and that 2014 will be a big year. Lets see if he is right.
• No M&A  Not a single company in the list was taken over. The value of several of these companies was evidenced by their shares rebounding greatly, but I still believe many of them cannot continue to stand alone much longer. At this point, it may take another downturn or a technological advance to get the valuations compelling enough for a deal to happen.

What could happen in 2014? I’ll be back with a 2014 Themes and Forecasts” blog and you can let me know where we agree or disagree.

President and CEO of Liquid Networx, Don Douglas has worked in the technology field for more than 30 years. During his time at the helm of Liquid Networx, the company has grown dramatically, developed channels, brought many new products and services to the market, gained brand recognition and garnered numerous accolades from clients and partners. Douglas is a member of the 2013-14 Channel Partners Advisory Board.