I recently sat down with our President and CEO, Don Massaro, to talk about what he thinks 2009 will bring for IT and email. Here are some of the key predictions he came up with. What do you think? Do you agree? Disagree? Do you have some predictions of your own? If so, lets us know what you think.
Don Massaro
The IT world is increasingly expanding and facing new challenges. Although lingering issues like spam, security and challenges with managing infrastructures aren’t disappearing, new threats arise as new devices, such as smart-phones, are used to access critical data and inbound/outbound messages. This past year we saw an increase in attention surrounding issues such as IT department downsizing due to a failing economy, increased usage of mobile email, spam and malware, and complete solutions over point products.
Based on what I’ve seen and heard from industry experts, and experienced internally and with customers, my predictions for what IT professionals can expect to see in the next year are as follows.
- In the corporate world, especially in financial services and technology sectors, the number of mergers and acquisitions will increase, creating a market for applications (not point products) that aid in combining and transitioning two IT infrastructures into one.
- At least 10% more people will use mobile devices to access their e-mail with or without the blessing of their IT departments.
- As computing devices continue to shrink (i.e. smartphones) securing the data on those easy-to-loose/forget devices will be increasingly important.
- Instant Messaging will continue to displace electronic mail for person-to-person conversations, but not for information sharing or group discussions.
- Both mail and spam volume will continue to increase between 5-8% per month.
- Malware will increase and be more malicious as people grow more desperate in a down economy and more likely to respond to phishing attacks.
- Demand for complete solutions will increase over point products to solve the problems associated with e-mail messaging (i.e. spam, virus, DLP, compliance, governance, policy).
- The worst data breaches will continue to be from users who don’t know any better, not from malicious intent.
- The availability of Know-It-All System Administrators will continue to dwindle, requiring products that are easier to use.
- VM will continue to increase as IT is asked to re-use or improve the use of existing infrastructures.