Hear ye, hear ye! Make way for the Great Seer, the Oracle of Truth and Justice, Master of all Things Electronic, and Ranter of Lunacy, Jim Jupiter the Omniscient shall hereby 
proceed to layeth upon you, the unwashed massess, several intrinsic and unopposable truths that shall be fortold duringthe forthcoming year:
1. Schmidt sings Kumbaya. Howard Schmidt’s soundtrack for the upcoming year will be a collection of campfire songs and little ditties about puppies and happiness so sweet and sticky they’d make a My Little Pony puke. Not by choice, of course. See, it didn’t take this long to name a Czar due to the administration’s indecisiveness, it took this long to strike a deal that ensures whoever’s named Czar won’t give the administration another black eye during Obama’s first term. Sweet and harmonious music, even if sung through clenched teeth.
2. Twitter is recognized for what it is – useless crap. I hope beyond all hope that Twitter will die. This is more wishful thinking than an actual prediction. I’m sure some people find Twitter useful, but I just don’t get it.
3. Android will be a hacker’s playground. All of those malicious code authors that have been waiting for an opportunity to invade the fertile mobile phone application market may have gotten their wish. The open architecture without the appstore cover charge is just what it takes to open the floodgates. That, and an audience, which it appears it may get with the new Nexus One.
4. Michael Jackson sitings will rise astronomically. Until he comes out of hiding for a resurrection tour, of course.
5. Cloud computing will suffer more serious reputation setbacks. Yep, “the cloud” will get some bruises, but it will make it through the year without being laughed off the scene. By my estimate, it’s on the verge of beinga viable solution – cloud computing(aka “software as a service”, aka “high performance computing”) reminds me of PKI – the technology that’s too good to die but too complicated to be done right. I think one good round of rebranding (“dust computing”?) is what it’s going to take.
6. Control systems security appliances will flood the market. One will come out on top, but not for several years. The solution that will come out on top? The one that bridges the gap between control system engineers and IT engineers, that has an aggressive marketingand pricing schedule. Tofino fits that bill, sans marketing and pricing strategies.
7. Tiger Woods, Mark Sanford, and Charlie Sheen (who made it just under the wire into the 2009 scandal party), will all appear in a TV ad together. I’d venture to say they’ll get their own reality show, but that market’s saturated.
8. Cyber crime will go way up. Or I should say that the number of prosecuted cyber criminals will go way up. Simple statistics: In a crappy economy, there are a larger number of unemployed geeks who need money. A portion of those unemployed geeks may try their hand at cyber crime. Due to inexperience, they’re more apt to get caught – either due to sloppy crime scenes (or not-sloppy-enough crime scenes) or when “fencing” their goods.
And here are the remaining predictions that I had to leave off the newsletter due to the financial crisis:
9. Siobahn Gorman gets a job with CNN. And parlays that into a correspondent gig for 60 minutes, Anderson Cooper style. What a powerhouse of cyber security reporting that’ll make! But it’ll be nice to at least have the fear-mongers coralled for once.
10. Netbooks overtake the “smart phone”. Let’s just face it, the owner of the current handheld device landscape is Apple. Now they’re going to get in and change the game with the iSlate. This is likely going to be a really f-ing big iPod Touch. Once Apple realizes that an iSlate is uncomfortable to hold up to your ear, it will be sold with a bluetooth headset and an optional ”dial pod” (read: “your iPod”), creating the first commercial implementation of the “personal area network”. …Then for 2011, bioelectrical implants for better power management!
11. Hoverkraf saya penuh dengan belut. … my apologies, I had some of this outsourced to a sketchy overseas company and had trouble translating them back. Let me know if you can make anything of this one. I think it has something to do with Rush Limbaugh.
That’s all, folks. Got any to add? Leave a comment! I’ll revisit this next December and see how we did – as long as the fame and fortune that destiny clearlyowes me doesn’t finally hit, go to my head, make me a billionaire through endorsement deals, then make me sleep with dozens of beautiful women and wreck my Escalade.
January 12th, 2010 on 8:42 pm
Hi Jim
We are thrilled that Tofino should get listed in your 2010 top ten. How often does a security appliance get get mentioned in the same breath with Howard Schmidt, Tiger Woods, Mark Sanford, Charlie Sheen and Rush Limbaugh? Well maybe being mentioned with Rush isn’t such a honour, but we are pleased just the same. Thanks.
One question – what don’t you like about our marketing and pricing strategies? We are always open to suggestions.
Eric
January 13th, 2010 on 7:06 am
Eric –
The Tofino is a dead simple product that really meets that “gap” between IT and controls systems guys – but it seems everywhere I go, nobody knows what it is or who’s behind the product. My primary interface is with IT types, so it might be that “side” of the house that doesn’t get the marketing message. In fact, a controls guy is who turned me on to it in the first place.
And although the “entry level” bit is enticing, it’s the cost-per-module that makes me craz(y|ier). Yes, I know that you don’t need every module every time, but the price gets a bit daunting in those times you need several. Btw, modbus “deep-packet-inspection” is way cool and really worth the money (particularly considering nobody else does it).
One thing I’d like to see (from an IT dork’s perspective) are more enterprise management features, like integration with SEMs. But not like the one made by a company that rhymes with Schmindustrial Schmefender, as they have the distinction of $elling an appliance-based $em that’s really nothing more than a white-box running a few regexe$.
J
January 20th, 2010 on 11:26 am
Hi Jim,
Thanks for your note and I appreciate your feedback. In terms of the cost of getting modules, we are going to explore that, given your feedback. We are also looking a new ways of packaging the modules. Do you have an out-of-band way of connecting to you (i.e. [redacted]) to bounce a few ideas off off you?
Regarding getting the word out there about Tofino, we agree. As a small company it has been a challenge and we have been trying to do it via OEM deals with companies like Honeywell, Hirschmann and MTL Instruments, but it has not been happening fast enough for us and we are considering other options. Will keep you posted.
Cheers,
Eric
January 23rd, 2010 on 8:40 am
Yep – blogs suck for two-way communication. Coincidentally, so do I. I’ll shoot you a quick email so you’ve got my address in the event you’re looking for any cynical and snarky commentary…