Predictions and resolutions for a better 2016

More self-inflicted security wounds — and companies start paying more attention to them. For many manufacturers, a combination of greed and incompetence caused major headaches towards the close of 2015, allowing major security flaws to go into production. In Juniper’s case, critical enterprise security software was specifically attacked. I have a strong feeling we’ll see more in the coming months, and as an industry IT needs to be better about educating the public, policy makers, and itself about how to make sure that as everything becomes digitized, we maintain some semblance of security.

More bridges to the cloud will develop, helping IT balance competing demands on cost, efficiency, and security. I’m really interested in how SQL Server 2016 will be put to work, and have talked with a lot of people excited to with Stretch’s ability to store a database partially on premise, partially on Azure.

Cloud competitors to Microsoft’s traditional domain get more serious, and Microsoft continues improving its as-a-Service strategy. Google made some major new investments late last year, and expect it to try again with a big push into an enterprise near you, especially with Diane Greene at the helm. Slack, right now known as a messaging and chat client for business, will likely rapidly push itself in a variety of new directions, seeking to challenge Active Directory as the way that companies manage users.