So without further ado, it’s the first annual STIAWPPBNOEBTAs! Drum roll, please.

This year’s “Beach Boys award for God only knows what I’d be without you” goes to … Scrivener!

The life of a journalist is not a difficult one. My most pressing decision on a daily basis is whether to get dressed or not. My mind says no, my parole officer says yes. Every day is a struggle. But choosing whether to give this award to the Kindle or Scrivener was like choosing a kitten to throw into the sea. Both have taken cherished activities and made them a little easier, a little more fun, and a little more convenient, but Scrivener wins because it’s the work of four people doing it out of love. And I’m a sucker for love. Also, bananas. But mostly, love.

And the coveted “headless chicken award for pointless rhetoric” goes to … the UK Government!

Anybody watching the Government smother its pre-election broadband promises with caveats and meaningless studies might have concluded that the Conservatives are a bunch of clueless, technologically incompetent nincompoops. This is not true. Just recently I had a chat with David Cameron who said “the internet, yes, yes, I’ve heard of it. We’ll have five. With chips. Do we want chips? No chips. (Aide whispers in his ear). Oh, the thing with the naked ladies on it, nope we still like that. Don’t worry your pretty little head about it, we’ll have 500 mega bats broadband up the mountains by the end of tomorrow, (aid whispers again, bit more urgently). Fine, fine, next week. Did somebody mention chips, I’m starving?” So there you are, turns out we’re right on track.

In the hotly contested “you disappoint me and make me want to cry” category, the award goes to… Google!

Ah, Google. Remember them? Once upon the time, they were the nerdy kid at the back of the class. Nice, kind, polite – enough scruples to shame a martyr. Clearly, Schmidt and co have worked out that not only is Mick Jagger richer than Ghandi, but also a bigger hit with the ladies. Nowadays, in true bad boy fashion, Google’s ripping data off our routers and broadcasting our contacts. It’s making a stand over China, only not really because it’s still subtly suckling at the communist teat with Android. Even Mozilla’s had a pop, you know, the company dependent on Google for 86% of its revenues. Not so much biting the hand that feeds it as weeing on its shoes, then begging for a doggy biscuit.

The “Spiderman award for unfair stick” goes to … Steve Ballmer

Everybody’s favourite ballistic beach ball of bald-headed fun has not had a good year. After overseeing the launch of the excellent Windows 7, less excellent Windows Phone 7, unproven Xbox Kinect, and back to excellent Office 2010 during a global recession, many are calling for his gleaming head. This rather strikes me as unfair. The argument is that Ballmer isn’t visionary enough, forward thinking enough, or Steve Jobs enough. To this I can only respond: if the grass is greener on the other side, then you’ll probably end up tramping through manure. Bit of Christmas wisdom for you there.

Ladies and gentlemen, the “George Bush award for gross stupidity” goes to … the police

Blimey, if Paul Chambers didn’t exist we’d have to invent him. This is the man who jokingly threatened to blow up Doncaster airport on Twitter after the snow grounded his flight. The police took this as a real terror threat, arresting him under some dusty section of the Terrorism Act and questioning him for almost seven hours, which must have gone something like this:

Policeman: “Name?”

Chambers: “Paul Chambers.”

(policeman writing in his pad) “Paul, Bin Laden, Chambers”

Chambers: “Er, just Paul Chambers.”

Policeman: “Right, right. Arrested for declaring a Jihad on-

Chambers: “It was just a joke on Twitter.”

Policeman: “A joke Paul, a joke? You must have known that threatening a major international travel hub like Doncaster Airport, and sending the country into spasms of panic by broadcasting the fact to the 12 people who follow you on twitter would lead here. A joke Paul, it doesn’t seem very funny to me… Now, cave of residence?”

“The Ashes award for squandered opportunity” goes to… Nokia!

It’s this simple. When Microsoft has got a better mobile OS than you, you’ve failed. No wait, that doesn’t cover it. When your OS is less fun than running backwards through ten hedges while wearing a blindfold, and boots made of thorns, you’ve failed. Poor Nokia. Their act is so far from being together that there’s a better chance of the Beatles staging a reunion gig with all four members, than Nokia clawing its way out of the hole it’s dug for itself. Which again, is very much like using a Nokia phone, these days.

The “Royal Wedding award for pointless fuss over nothing” goes to the … iPhone 4 antenna scandal

News of the iPhone 4’s ropey antenna couldn’t have been met with more hysteria if the phone had come with Gary Glitter wallpaper and admitted to running Diana off the road. I mean honestly, if you’re unhappy return it, or don’t buy one in the first place. How hard is that? Quite frankly, until I hear the story of the mountain climber trapped in a blizzard with a broken leg who couldn’t ring for help because his iPhone signal cut out, this story will continue to cause me hot, salty tears of tech shame.

Technologies to make the top ten include Client Computing (think virtualisation, again), Social Computing (personal and work time will mix, darn it) and, rather less exotically, Flash Memory.

Meanwhile, Gartner also points to the rise in mobile apps, stating that despite the plethora of applications for platforms such as the iPhone, it predicts a newer version with identical operating system interface and processor architecture.

But can we trust Gartner to predict the future? Let’s look at its predictions for 2009: apparently we were to expect Enterprise MashUps this year: “Enterprises are now investigating taking mashups from cool Web hobby to enterprise-class systems to augment their models for delivering and managing applications.” Maybe it has, but I haven’t noticed. And it’s strangely disappeared from this year’s list.

Green IT is one that’s stayed on the list, but has it really affected companies’ decisions this year?

Unsurprisingly, both lists include Cloud Computing, the buzzword that’s been hovering in the background for an age. However, Gartner predicts cloud-based services will be exploited in a variety of ways by enterprises in 2010, indicating there is some substance to the term, rather than just cumulous puff.

Nevertheless, as Jon Honeyball points out in his post, Microsoft needs to get real when it comes to hosting, there are still huge hurdles to overcome. Will businesses really be able to trust cloud-based services by this time next year?

So do you agree with Gartner’s predictions, for 2009 or 2010? What technologies do you think will make the biggest impact on organisations over the coming years?