5 Tech Companies To Follow At CES 2011

We're heading to the United States on the 4th of January to attend the Consumer Electronics Show, the annual conference that kick starts the beginning of the year in Las Vegas and which will last until the 9th of January 2011.

Once over there, we will meet dozens of technology companies, big and small, which will all be very eager to show us their latest hardware, applications and services; but we've got a shortlist of five of them which we believe may bring out game-changing technology.

AMD will be the first company we will meet once in Las Vegas and 2011 will be a very challenging year for the x86 manufacturer, not least because other than Intel, a slew of ARM-based semiconductor companies may soon start to compete with it and eat away its revenues.

Next year will see the mainstream appearance of the first Fusion product in the form of the Brazos platform and made up of Zacate and Ontario. AMD will be demoing full working Fusion products at CES 2011 where it has already scooped the Innovations 2011 Design and Engineering awards in the Computer hardware category.

Microsoft will also have a fairly interesting 2011 as rumours of a Windows 7 For Tablet operating system have recently emerged; one that could expose some serious cracks in the 25-year old relationship between Intel and Microsoft. If Microsoft goes ahead with a version of Windows 7 for the ARM platform, it will be the first time for more than a decade - not since Windows NT 4.0 that Microsoft will have released a desktop OS for a non x86 platform. Microsoft's CEO, Steve Ballmer, will deliver a preshow keynote address at CES 2011 and previous major announcements by the company at the event include the Xbox and Windows Vista. We won't expect anything less this time around.