.NET Predictions for 2007 - The Magic 8-Ball Rides Again

While I was editor for TheServerSide.NET, one of the more fun things I got to do was to write up humorous (hopefully) articles and cartoons.  I've been missing that lately so I've decided to cut loose here in blogland.  So here now are my predictions for 2007.  Read and be amazed. 

This is a Feature?
The new data visualization features in Excel 2007 will enable household budgets all over the country to highlight in vivid gradients and cute little icons that the amount of money we're paying for online services like NetFlix, iTunes, etc. is quickly surpassing the amount of our mortgage payment.

AJAX 2.0
Following in the footsteps of Google Suggest (a website for people who know they want to search for something but are so stupid they need suggestions about what), Google Corporation releases GoogleDrive.com, a web site that will download a small executable and run it inside any browser to show you how much disk space you have available.  This new site, while as completely useless as GoogleSuggest will usher in a new rush to develop executables that can be embedded into the browser thereby further enhancing the Web 2.0 user experience.  Not wanting to be left behind, Microsoft will re-release ActiveX under a new name and software development everywhere will take another giant step backwards.

iAngst
Looking to tap into the mental pysche of today's youth, Microsoft releases a Zune that wirelessly seeks out other Zunes and removes any songs that don't involve whining about parents, unprotected sex with "da biotches", and those not using the word "delicious" at least once.  Sadly, this Zune won't work with Vista either.

Sure it's easier, but I miss Clippy
Power Office users, unhappy with the new Ribbon interface, create a complex petition document asking Microsoft to remove the Ribbon.  Ironically, the document includes 3-dimensional smart art, XML data visualizations, and SharePoint sychronization and takes only 20 minues to create.

Now turn your head and cough
Digital Rights Management goes to new extremes as Media Center 12 is released requiring biometric DNA verification before it will play a single track from your 20 year old "Men at Work" CD.  Fortunately internet porn downloaders see the DNA requirement as a "non-issue".

Data, Data Everywhere...And Not A Stop To Think
As Language Integrated Query, and it's DLINQ and XLINQ cousins become a reality, the line between code and data blurs into invisibility allowing Microsoft to acheive Ultimate Demoware Nirvana. Now developers can more easily inject both data and query logic directly to the user interface of any .NET Application.  VB.NET is renamed Access.NET.

Just Add A Really Hot Cup of Tea
As Intel and AMD release quad core processors, creating multithreaded applications finally goes mainstream.  Later in the year, an enterprise developer for a Fortune 1000 company, working on a quad core system with 4 Gigs of RAM and a physics coprocessor inadvertantly develops a cold fusion reactor while trying to write a VB.NET application using the BackgroundWorker component.

Express This!
Microsoft's attempts to move into the more creative side of software development with it's Expression line of applications backfires badly when loyal developers who were previously responsible for building attractive large scale web and Windows based applications refuse to purchase any Expression SKU, instead demanding that the products be included in their @$#%((@$$# MSDN subscription like all of the other Microsoft development tools.  Microsoft does however sell a half a dozen copies to some former Mac owners whose spouse forced them to buy a PC this time so they could use Office 2007.

 So?  What do you see in our collective future?