Virtualization and Cloud executives share their predictions for 2013.  Read them in this VMblog.com series exclusive.

Contributed article by Floyd Strimling, Vice President of Community, Technical Evangelist at Zenoss

It's hard to believe that 2012 is coming to a close, as it's been an exciting year within technology. Here are my predictions for 2013:

• Google challenges Amazon AWS for public cloud supremacy
  
  With far too much attention being placed on an OpenStack competitor to Amazon, Google Compute Engine will emerge as the clear alternative. Google's secret sauce includes a complex mix of datacenters, virtualization, breakthrough software, a comprehensive fiber backbone, and the use of new technologies that are crucial to Google's own core business and the public cloud.

• OpenStack stumbles under the weight of its commercializers
  
  Speaking of OpenStack, in 2013 we will see the first signs of cracks in the OpenStack Foundation as competitive commercial offerings from both Red Hat and VMware threaten this promising open source project. As altruistic goals meet the brutal reality of capitalism, customers/prospects and not technologists will appoint the winners and losers.

• Converged infrastructure led M&A shakes industry to its core
  
  Cisco's successful UCS platform has spawned a few copycats but they continue to dominate the market. In 2013, we will see the ante upped considerably as trusted partners become bitter enemies and the likes of Juniper, Brocade, Mellanox, NetApp, Citrix, WhipTail, Coraid, Big Switch, and more become delectable takeover targets.

• The premature reports of the death of the PC will lead Microsoft to a banner year
  
  In 2013, Microsoft is poised to capitalize on the crossroads of a changing industry. As VDI, mobile, tablets (not iPads), and smartphones takeover our personal and business life, Windows 8 becomes a powerful solution backed by Microsoft's not so secret weapons, Office and the cloud.

• Yahoo! returns to past glory
  
  With the appointment of Marissa Mayer as CEO, Yahoo has begun the journey of moving from sad story to past glory. By unleashing the power of their expansive user base, infrastructure, big data, and various internal/external software projects, Marissa and company finally monetize their assets in 2013.

About the Author