Looking for insights into the hot trades for next year? Pete Najarian looks ahead to the smartest tech plays!
You didn’t know we had a crystal ball did you? Oh dang! It fell onto the floor and shattered into a thousand pieces.
Well, here’s what we thought we saw – following is a glimpse into the past as well as the future – that’s right the future, at least the way we think it will play out.
1993: Microsoft windows becomes the most popular operating system in the world, with more than 25 million users
1997: Office 97 becomes the fastest selling business application in PC history
2010: The year Microsoft got "control - alt - deleted" by Google!
For decades, consumers and companies across the globe forked over hundreds of dollars for a single license of Microsoft's newest software.
That is, until Google started giving it away - for free. And that's when the clouds rolled in. The first blow came in 2006, with the quiet launch of "Google docs" - a word processor that was collaborative, web based, and cost nothing.
But in 2010, Google went for the jugular, launching Chrome OS, a free operating system that broke Windows stranglehold and set off a consumer craze for tiny, nimble, $300 netbooks.
Windows 90% market share was shaken and left Steve Ballmer regretting he ever said, "so far, Google really has no proven track record of success outside the area of search.”
Much like its software, Google's stock is now "in the clouds" climbing back to its highs of over $700 -- while Microsoft shares continue to wade in the $30’s the same price it was at when windows '98 hit stores.Pay for software? That's so 2009.
With 2010 in the books, where was your money?
I do think everything mentioned above actually happens, says Joe Terranova.
