2007 Enterprise Technology Predictions

First – Happy New Year! The Lightspeed Team is very excited about the prospects for 2007. We’re just getting rolling with our blog here and hopeful it can be a positive resource to let you know how and why we approach things the way we do.

I wanted to follow up on Jeremy’s post earlier this week 2007 Consumer Internet Predictions and share some of my thoughts regarding areas we’ll be watching closely this year. Full disclosure – I didn’t fully realize how hard blogging is. I’m really nervous! I have a lot more respect for all of you who routinely put yourself out there for the world to read about. But I do think there needs to be a lot more transparency from the VC community, so here goes…

1. Where are the NEW IDEAS in security? Despite the venture community pouring hundreds of millions into best-of-breed, segmented security solutions, it turns out customers want to buy and manage one complete, layered suite. The problem is that with 200,000 pieces of malicious code officially logged (100,000 of those appearing in the past 18 months according to McAfee’s AVERT Labs), the model for traditional anit-virus programs looks less and less exciting. The good news is that most experts finally agree that ridding software of vulnerabilities at the code level is the best defense. It would seem to me that companies such as Fortify Software and Mu Security are on the right track. So what’s next then? Mobile security is a relatively untapped (huge) opportunity. Two of the of the fastest growing things I can think of – social networking websites (Facebook and MySpace) and the proliferation of intelligent mobile devices serve as great mediums to spread malicious code – even if enterprises are well prepared!

2. Intelligent storage solutions. Talking with CIO’s from Lightspeed’s CIO Forum, I get a lot of great feedback about what the priorities are for 2007. One consistent message (complaint) I hear is regarding the explosive growth in unstructured data and the associated storage costs. Despite the continued decline in disk costs, overall storage costs as a result of needed capacity and performance, not to mention space and power, continues to be a major concern for CIOs. I’m hopeful 2007 is a year where we see more exciting new ideas about how to manage data intelligently over pure performance or blind capacity.

3. WiMax – Why not? I’m really excited about WiMax. As mentioned in a recent post by Katie on GigaOM, the mutiplayer chess match is just starting to heat up as massive players such as Sprint and Clearwire manage the infrastructure buildouts and work with the likes of Nokia and Motorola. I have this grand vision where some day there will be super cheap WiMax (only) enabled devices that are perfect for SMS, IM, sharing pictures and video, and VoIP calls. They’ll be available in vending machines and a quick password entry (or biometric signature) will instantly customize the device for your personal use (as all your information will inevitably be in the cloud). Ok – I know it’s a bit out there and I don’t think that happens in 2007 (probably not in 2008 either) but as I said, I’m excited about the possibilities that come with ubiquitous, ultra-high bandwidth.

4. Innovation for international markets. Is 2007 a watershed year in the sense US based companies start thinking about developing technologies primarily for international markets? The $100 laptop? Clearly there has complete acceptance of the idea of leveraging international talent and labor to build products for the US market (first), it will be interesting to see how global market demands influence innovation here in the US.

As always, I look forward to hearing from you. Feel free to drop me a note anytime (john@lightspeedvp.com)