By Owen Ferguson

The big rollover into the year 2000 is fast approaching, and there are hundreds of varying predictions as to what will happen when it gets here. But what happens after that?

Assuming that there's no great calamity, no great sociopolitical upheaval, no accidental nuclear war, what can we expect to see in the IT marketplace next year? Will there still be an IT marketplace to speak of?

Chances are there will, and from the look of things, it will be large, if not a different one.

One of the people looking forward to this market is Loren Hoffman, president of Markham, Ont.-based Sable Computer Inc. "It's sort of like looking in the crystal ball," he says. "I think a lot of our industry is going to be based on the economy as a whole. I think that in Canada and the U.S. there's going to be continued positive activity in the business community as a whole. So I think it's going to thrive. A good economy will drive hardware and software sales. I think we're going to see some record growth next year. What levels of record growth I can't project, but I think it's going to be a good year."

Strong economic growth isn't the only exciting thing Hoffman predicts for next year, however. He's also betting there will be a new burst of innovation from companies drunk with millennial creativity.

"My inclination is that, as a whole, the industry is in a very upbeat mood. I think we're going to see some incredible new technologies," he says. "You know people talk about the Internet, they talk about wireless communication, but I think that's just the tip of the iceberg. I think we're going to see some dynamic software coming, and it's not going to be coming from Microsoft. It's going to be coming from small companies with little niche products."

Speaking of Microsoft, will the release of Windows 2000 and Windows Millennium mean that companies will blow a large portion of their budgets on these new upgrades, leaving less new money for other technology? Hoffman says no.

"What I'm hearing is that it's not revolutionary. The enhancements, I don't think, facilitate a lot of these companies going out and spending just for the sake of upgrading to the latest software," he says. "That's what I'm hearing. What I'm hearing is there's not enough features, there's not enough bang for the buck."

On the other hand, Hoffman sees the PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) market will experience significant growth, although that may be hampered somewhat by a lack of powerful wireless connectivity. "I'm a little disappointed in some of the wireless devices that I've seen, because a lot of them don't pertain to the Canadian market because of Bell's restrictions," he says.

Jill House, a research analyst with International Data Corp. of Framingham, Mass., agrees that being able to get online with a PDA will be an important selling feature.

"I think Internet connectivity is a big issue," she says. "I think going forward it will be a bigger one, but I think the trick is, you look at this and you start to recognize that it's not Internet content as you're used to it on the desktop. It's very specific, very targeted, very personal Internet content, things like travel schedules, or unique notifications and alerts or your e-mail from a web service."

However, like Hoffman, she's predicting big things for the PDA. "Worldwide we're forecasting that handheld companions will grow 35 per cent from 1999 to 2003, compound annual growth rate," she says, "and we expect them to grow at a pretty healthy clip going forward."

But will the money be there? George Wall, president of CA4IT, a Toronto-based national association of accounting firms serving the IT industry, says it will. "This has been a year that has impacted consultants rather negatively — most of the projects were finished relatively early, and there was sort of a hold on projects," he says, "but people in IT are becoming much more aware of the benefits for both the employer and the contractor in a contract-based arrangement. I think there's a whole slew of cost-justifiable e-business projects that are waiting in the wings for the CIO's to say 'OK, we're happy with the way the Y2K fix is working, we can now start to focus on new projects.'"

In fact, CA4IT is predicting this boom may even begin this month — before the Y2K rollover occurs. "There are a lot of financial institutions that have November 30th year ends, and once they're in a new fiscal period they'll get some new projects under way," explains Wall. "A lot of the financial institutions have had a hold on new projects."

E-business is also seen as a potential cash cow in the coming year. "The talk on e-business strategies is like no other software development that anybody has ever seen before," Wall says. "Everybody wants an e-business strategy, they're just not sure what it is. E-business is really going to be the big mover in the year 2000." That's where e-business solution providers can expect to find a lucrative market, and the money will be there "once we've swallowed this nasty year 2000 pill."

One of the biggest e-business fields that's developing is the application service provider (ASP) marketplace. While the ASP market is still in its infancy, especially from a user perspective, most of the applications currently being rented out are large-scale enterprise software. But Traver Gruen-Kennedy, chairman of the ASP Industry Consortium, predicts all major software will soon be distributed using an ASP model.

"By next year, I think we can expect to see a significant number of users coming online, and by 2001 it will be quite mainstream," he says. "I think it would be better for companies to get in early rather than get in late, because as everyone shifts to this model, those companies that start early will already be realizing some income from ASP sales as their packaged software sales start to fall off, while those that wait will notice their package sales drop off and won't yet be generating significant ASP revenue." As software companies get involved in that inevitable rush to become ASPs, they're going to be turning to resellers and consultants for the equipment and advice they need.

Although it's impossible to be able to tell for sure what's going to happen in the IT market come next year, predictions across the board seem to be optimistic, and that, if nothing else, is a good sign.