The editors of PCWorld have ranked the best PCs, HDTVs, components, sites, and services of 2007 and listed the products they’re looking forward to in ‘08. Here are the top 10:
Google Apps Premier Edition. I wasn’t surprised - hosting core applications on Google’s servers rather than on users’ makes sense, and the number of initial clients shows that it’s likely to enjoy continued acceptance.
Intel Core 2 Duo. Again, no surprise here. Intel is producing some great “new generation” chip sets these days and the things lined up for introduction are amazing.
Nintendo Wii. I haven’t used one of these but the ads make it look fun!
Verizon FiOS.
RIM Blackberry 8800. Great smartphone with peripherals.
Parallels Desktop. Allows Mac users to run - not emulate - Windows. Works better than on PCs in some cases!
Pioneer Elite 1080p PRO-FHD1.
Infrant Technologies ReadyNAS NV.
Apple Mac OS X 10.4 “Tiger”. A great operating system made even better with the latest release.
Adobe Premiere Elements 3. Long missing from the landscape, Premiere has reestablished itself as a player in video production.
Two things I found particularly telling after reading the list: First, no where is there any mention of Microsoft’s premiere operating system, Windows Vista! Apple’s OSX Tiger and the Canonical Ubuntu 7.04 operating systems came in at numbers 9 and 16 respectively, but Vista failed to make the cut! I’m sure Vista fans will cry foul, but PCWorld is highly respected in the industry…
And second, that Google Apps Premier Edition won the “Product of the Year” crown. Microsoft may still be the ten-ton hippo of office applications, but for the majority of us that rarely require such a bloated, albeit feature rich, office suite, Google Apps is looking like a no-brainer.