Here are eight changes in the conversation stream that I expect to see in 2010.  These conversation changers will alter what we talked about in 2009.  That doesn't mean the 2009 topics of conversation disappear or becomes less relevant - just that the conversation changes and popularity of the 2010 topics are or I think will be on a steep rise and some of them may even eclipse those of  2009.   However, many of them are simply a shift in the momentum of competing technologies.  Here are changes that I foresee happening :

iPhone/Android - There is no question that Apple's iPhone/iTouch devices will continue to have huge popularity and success. However, I think the conversation will change to Android-based devices.  Android is constructing a huge device ecosystem from cell phones to e-Readers - MP3 and Portable Media Players to Netbooks and more.  The economics and the implied interoperability is reminiscent of Windows.

Google/Bing - In a very short time Bing has achieved some fairly impressive results.  I think this is the beginning.   I think that the surprise will be how quickly Bing achieves substantial mindshare - next year is the year of Bing in search.  Google will have to respond.

MacOS X/Windows 7.  I think the arrival of Windows 7 will see a shift to a better form of Windows in large segment of the desktops out there.  MacOS X will continue to do well in various forms but Windows 7 has significant improvements over Vista and Microsoft has clearly fixed a lot of things.   The overall Windows 7 UI is significantly better and the OS is much more solid.  I think increasingly the conversation is about Windows 7.  Recently, I  worked on a project where I used Windows 7 and Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) tool.  RDP was a productivity win.  Working on multiple machines I was able to transparently view the server desktops and drag and drop folders and files easily between various systems.  Windows 7 was not the mess I thought it was in previous versions of Windows - it was actually reasonably productive.  I have Microsoft Office on two machines - one Mac and one Windows 7 machine (and yes I also have OpenOffice on these machines).  What I notice is the combination of Office and Windows 7 is really a pretty nice fit - they work in tandem and the tools compliment each other.  Office feels less productive to me on MacOS X.

Ruby/Rails and Groovy/Grails.  Ruby and RoR have garnered significant mindshare - but I think the combination of Groovy  have been garnering more interest (you can check out Google trends trends).  It isn't that simple.  I think Ruby currently has a substantially larger mindshare - but it is waning.  Groovy offers a Java.next approach that is attractive for developers searching for a turbo-charged, productive follow-on to the Java language.    In the quest for a better enterprise solution, Grails offers a framework built on Spring, Hibernate and Groovy.  This is a type  of  Java Web Edition that Sun should have offered years ago.  The fact that SpringSource offers professional services and support for Groovy and Grails is actually the piece of the puzzle that was missing before.

Rich Internet Application / Rich Client Platform.  Next year it will become more obvious - but have you noticed the large number of RCP applications that have popped up.  I follow NetBeans, but I suspect that something similar may be happening with Eclipse.  I think this year was the year of RIAs with the arrival of JavaFX, Flex/Flash and SilverLight.  I think it has dawned on a lot of developers that RIAs are limiting.  In my mind, they seem designed for graphic intensive web apps  - but most enterprise apps are data intensive.  Unfortunately I don't see JavaFX going anywhere until they fix it so that it can seamlessly support for  bi-directional interoperability and RCP interoperability is built into it.  I'm not saying that there won't be a lot of RIAs out there - just that they seem relegated to flashy, low-data graphics apps on web sites.

Laptop/Tablet.  I suspect Apple will probably hit a homerun with their rumored tablet, but, even if they don't there are some clearly interesting alternatives to the laptop coming in tablet form.  Despite the rough start, the JooJoo tablet looks pretty cool.  The tablets may turn into better eReaders than the existing Nook and Kindle.

MySQL/PostgreSQL.  Okay - so whatever happens out of the Oracle/Sun merger, I don't think it matters.  I think a lot of companies that chose MySQL to escape from the Oracle license fees are probably spooked and may be thinking about other options just about now.  It's not so much what Oracle will do as what they might decide not to do. It's an open source project that will be led by a company that competes with the largest revenue stream the company has.  I suspect there is probably some unease about what the longterm implications of the merger.  Other companies in the process of trying to decide what database to use  are probably taking a long hard look at PostgreSQL.  It's possible that MySQL will continue to flourish but  I think PostgreSQL will be one of the beneficiaries of the merger.  The other one may be Apache's CouchDB. 

JavaOne/Devoxx.  Okay - everybody seems to be talking about the fact that the JavaOne traditional call-for-papers has come and gone.  Amazingly, without a word from either Sun or Oracle - which I find amazing.  If it is Oracle's intention to merge it in to Oracle World - good luck. I see Devoxx as the new JavaOne if they do such a move.  I don't think that's a bad thing at all.  It is sad for me to see the demise of JavaOne - I've gone to almost every single one of them - but I think Devoxx is a really good replacement for it.

about why the best of possible worlds would involve Oracle building on top of the platform and moving JDeveloper's Oracle functionality over to NetBeans as  Platform modules.  It's not like we are talking a huge technology bridge - say like moving to an alien, native API - no  both NetBeans and JDeveloper are built using the Swing toolkit.  Get with it, Oracle.  Move your developers  to a great Java Platform solution and and the best IDE available.

[Update : I found this out just now, yet another very recent adoptee  of the NetBeans Platform, is NASA.  You can read the details here .]