mediajunk

I've been attending Internet World 2005 in London. It's much more of a trade fair than a networking event (to my disappointment, to be honest). However, a handful of the seminars were quite interesting.

I was most intrigued by a talk by Mike Taylor (CEO of Sirius) on open source software, entitled "Are proprietary software vendors facing an Ice Age?" The idea is that, with the commoditisation of both hardware and software, businesses in the IT industry must focus on services -- e.g. implementation, support, etc. This, says Mike, is the future, and represents a fundamental shift in the IT business model.

On reflection, I realised that my own company has indeed been moving in this direction. We configure, install and integrate open source Content Management Systems and Databases, for example. We charge clients for integration and training, but not (obviously) for licence fees.

Another interesting seminar was a panel discussion on the growing problem of malware. I had no idea how big this problem already was, yet this is only the tip of the iceberg, the experts all agreed. While viruses of old were created mainly by teenage geeks for kicks, today's malware -- trojans, keyloggers and the like -- are designed by the criminal world, who use social engineering techniques (and hire teenage geeks to create the programmes) for purposes of making money unethically or illicitly (or both).

Watch these spaces!