Dateline Dec 31 – Austin, Texas
Season’s Greetings and Happy New Year everyone! Zippy and I enjoyed the last few days of 2008 recovering from a simply stupefying number of holiday parties with the requisite eating, drinking and general merrymaking. Zippy really digs this time of year because a) people who’ve been over eggnogged love to feed dogs some of whatever they’re eating, b) Zippy’s really cute so he gets fed a lot and c) he eats pretty much anything. It’s also fun to see how excited the little guy can get when faced with that many eating opportunities. Out of control doesn’t even begin to cover it – major damage to the Christmas tree (doesn’t like the needles – they hurt his feet) and a lot of present unwrapping. Considering that he’s working without opposable thumbs and using only lips, tongue and teeth, it’s an awesome display.
What’s not awesome about this time of year are fireworks – or more accurately, Zippy’s reaction to fireworks. Little, excited indoor dog doesn’t like loud unexpected noises and expresses his displeasure by a) peeing and/or b) chewing up something expensive and leather. Especially enjoys Bally, Ferragamo, watch bands - you get the idea. It’s all part of the charm of a long term relationship with man’s best friend.
2008 has been quite a year – godawful economic mess, fascinating (and the longest ever) presidential campaigns (Honestly, when’s the last time you paid a lot of attention to primaries?), hurricanes, government coups, pirates, the Olympics. It’s always interesting in the technology business – Yahoo and Microsoft (or not), Vista and now Windows 7, the ongoing growth of Apple, Linux, open source. Two of my favorites for the year – Bamboo laptop from Asus http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=5&l2=25&l3=859&l4=0&model=2696&modelmenu=1 Very cool, moderately expensive. Asus is obviously charging for the cachet of being green – but if enough people start buying, the price will go down (it always does). And it’s nice to support things that are sustainable. Just in case you want to go completely in the other direction and leave a big honkin’ carbon footprint , Asus also sells a Lamborghini branded laptop (for about twice as much). Product #2 – Flash Drive with built-in anti-virus - http://www.techworld.com/security/news/index.cfm?newsid=106021 Simple, smart, easy to use and makes perfect sense. I bet they sell a ton. I became a lifetime fan of SanDisk after I ran my Cruzer drive through a couple cycles in my washing machine and dryer. Still works fine. Amazing.
Other interesting stories – the impressive effect on spam volume related to the shutdown of some key hosting sites. For example, shutting down a single site, McColo, dropped spam volumes initially by 75% and subsequently by 33%. Since spam makes up somewhere between 70% and 80% of worldwide email traffic, shutting down the right hosting companies was an awesome display of leverage and freed up a lot of infrastructure for better things. Makes you wonder what took so long.
The theme here is that Zippy and I dig things that are simple, sustainable, make sense – and as a result are cool. Kind of by definition. Like PSQL database products – easy to use, direct, really affordable and pretty much bullet proof. We also love marketing and watching for the next big thing.
And that brings us to the 2nd half of this blog: Predictions for 2009.
Economy – It’s going to get worse before it gets better but we’ll be on the road to recovery by summer. Bailout/Stimulus Package total – just south of 3 trillion $. Cash will continue to be king. The philosophy of reuse, reduce, recycle will rule. $25B is not going to be enough to save the big 3. Gas will not stay this affordable.
Pervasive – Expect some surprising news about an old, old friend. We'll see 5 new OEMs for PSQL on Mac OS-X and an ongoing growth of Macintosh business applications. You’re going to be really glad you upgraded to PSQL v10 when your customer start to move to 64-bit and multi-core hardware. Somebody, somewhere (a lot of somebodies in fact) will save a lot of money because they were using AuditMaster, Backup Agent and DataExchange. Some people will continue to do crazy things at work and Mother Nature will remind us all (again) why we have backup systems.
Sports – Giants win the Super Bowl. Lewis Hamilton will repeat as Formula 1 champion. Chicago Cubs will win the World Series – and the city will be swallowed whole by the earth when a previously undetected tectonic plate has a massive shift directly under Wrigley Field.
Celebrity and Politics – Oprah will lose 100 lbs, and gain it back, and lose it again. The Obama’s will get 2 dogs. Neither of them will be as cool as a Toy Fox Terrier (Zippy). Brittany Spears will get married, and go into rehab. Al Franken will become the newest senator from Minnesota (not a surprise from the same place that elected a WWF celebrity to the governorship). Michael Jackson will remain in the news and he won’t get any more normal.
Personal – As a result of a freak laboratory accident, Zippy’s mental capacity will increase tenfold. The results will be both surprising and terrifying.
Buckle up! It's going to be an interesting year.