In 2013, one trend that I had been watching for years finally culminated in the next stage. I got a position with Alfresco that will allow me to make a difference in the future of the industry. While it took longer than I thought it would, the future arrived.

In looking at my Predictions for 2013, I didn’t do well…at all. If it wasn’t for a slam-dunk prediction, I would have failed to even be half right.

Let’s see how poorly I did.

Breaking it Down

For convenience I will list my predictions again here and then evaluate how I did for each one.

1. There will be More Clouds in 2013: There is more and more people moving to the cloud every day. Even Europe is starting to move some data to Salesforce. This one I got correct, but it was also an easy one.
2. First Major On-Premises Traditional ECM Vendor will become Obsolete: Okay, maybe obsolete is a little severe, but I wanted this prediction to have some bite. Sure enough, it happened. Oracle moved OUT of the Leader’s Quadrant in the latest Enterprise Content Management Magic Quadrant and everyone I’ve talked too wasn’t surprised. I don’t see them climbing back into the lead. That’s 2 out of 2 so far.
3. Big Data Falls from Grace: This hasn’t happened yet. The entire concept is splintering into different areas. The term is in heavy use even if people are starting to realize that the real driver is the crunching of numbers of ANY size. After watching people’s positive reactions to Andy McAfee’s keynote on Big Data at the Alfresco Summit, I am failing myself on this one.
4. Facebook Will Have Serious Competition: Not yet. Instagram is really taking off, but that is owned by Facebook. While people are leaving Facebook, where they are going isn’t clear-cut. Voting no on this one.
5. My Secret Prediction Will Come True: Trending, but not true. It could still happen before the year ends, but I doubt it. It is going to happen, but I was wrong on the timing.
6. A New Cloud-Based Content Management Player Will Emerge: I could cheat on this one, but I won’t. I was wrong. Dropbox is moving into the Enterprise, but there are no new “leaders” in the marketplace. There are some new players beginning to make a name for themselves, but they haven’t charged into the thick of things.
7. We Will Bicker Over Using “Social” as a Term: I got this one right. It is easy money to bet against people coming to a consensus in this industry.
8. Traditional Content/Document Management Vendors will be Forced to Acknowledge Challenge of Pure-Play Cloud Solutions: Most are at that point now. Vendors have been adding desktop sync and working towards cloud deployments all year. Alfresco is no exception. As the trend towards the cloud and simpler apps continues, older vendors will continue to shift in order to survive.

I only got half of them correct, which is pretty bad for me. The trends are all progressing just fine, they just haven’t culminated yet. In fact, I would readily take some of the missed predictions for 2013 and make them predictions for 2014, but that is just lazy.

My question to you, Do I even deserve the 50% or was I too generous?