Desktops

Just like 2004, speed increases are nice, but they will remain hard to
justify for most business users, for whom "fast" was "fast
enough" around 1999. And so, this year will see Intel go beyond the clock
speed and concentrate on dual-core processors. Intel is planning for a brighter
2005. This means an accelerated move to Pentium M core technology, the dual-core
Pentium 4s, or something else.

When Intel announced that the Pentium 4 "Prescott" core would not
reach 4.0 GHz, the countdown began for the obvious 3.8 GHz release. This finally
arrived in the form of the Pentium 4 570J, a 3.8 GHz processor featuring 1 MB of
L2 cache. The P4 'Northwood' will fade from the market in 2005, while Intel
will push the LGA775, and i925XE and i915X and the Celeron, which has been
migrated to 90 nanometer.

Another
thing that Intel did was to finally sign a cross-licensing agreement with nVidia,
so the latter is allowed to supply its chipsets to the Intel markets as well,
and its dual-PCI-Express-card SLI graphics technology to the Pentium 4 platform.
Intel also announced that it will fade out the P4 Northwood this year. This
year, Intel and AMD will be will be battling each other in dual-core style.

More Linux on the desktop

In 2005, several vendors released desktop environments that mimic the
Windows interface, establishing Linux as a low-cost alternative to Windows.
However, too much fragmentation, combined with a lack of critical desktop
applications and increasing dependence on the Windows platform, will prevent
desktop Linux adoption from increasing significantly.

Not just Longhorn

Microsoft will concentrate on improving XP features and lay off Longhorn
hype for a while.