Predictions are a dangerous game. Bill Gates once forecast: “Two years from now, spam will be solved.” That was in 2004, and unfortunately spam still makes up more than 90 per cent of business email.
However, as we head for the second decade of the 21st century, are there any solid trends emerging? What is the future shape of IT security? Will we still be swamped in malware and spam or will newer, more potent threats emerge? Will the infosecurity vendor community be able to innovate to meet the security challenges of the coming decade?

http://www.scmagazineuk.com/analysis-what-will-the-next-decade-bring-in-the-information-security-world/article/164741/

The move from desktop and internal data storage towards cloud-based systems is also likely to meld with the rise of the mobile world.

THE TEMPTATION, of course, is to sum up the decade in terms of brands. Thus the noughties could be seen as the period of Google’s inexorable rise, of Apple’s metamorphosis into a music and mobile phone colossus, of Amazon’s increasing dominance, of mushrooming user-generated content (Flickr, Blogger) and social networking (MySpace, Facebook, Twitter), of the emergence of Wikipedia as the world’s leading reference work, of YouTube and the BBC’s iPlayer – and of corporate stumbles (Microsoft, Yahoo, eBay, innumerable record labels and newspaper groups).

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/dec/27/web-goes-mainstream-in-noughties

The noughties have been technologically inspiring and liberating: but the threats to a wired world have also become starkly clear over the past 10 years

Cloud computing. While cynics may also refer to this as the reinvention of time-sharing, Cloud computing has quickly become a critical part of future WANs. Finally, after years of lip-service, the network and the processor are becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish. But moving to the cloud also raises myriad questions. For instance, there’s a question of whether you use a public cloud or a private cloud. Additionally, all of the traditional issues such as compliance, security, application performance still abound. For a great overview of the entire cloud arena, see Jim’s two reports (very highly recommended.)

http://www.networkworld.com/newsletters/frame/2009/122109wan2.html

In this, our final newsletter for 2009, it seems appropriate to look back at some of the major products, services and trends for the year. And what a challenging year it has been!