Welcome to 2009!
It's the first day of the rest of your life, and, of course, 2009. We didn't hit 1,000,000 members, but I predict SQLServerCentral will pass that mark in 2009. Not a difficult prediction, but that should keep me from missing completely on my guesses.
I saw a poll asking for predictions for 2009 and thought it was fun to participate, so I made a few and had a good time thinking about what might happen in the new year. So I decided to start the year with a few predictions that I think will come true.
My second prediction for 2009 is that the global economy will be slow, slower than 2008. I know that's not exactly going out on a limb, but I don't think that spending, hiring, and other measures of a strong economy will be as high as they were in 2008. Energy, autos, finance, all of these industries need to reinvent themselves to move forward, or perhaps to survive.
So given those two things, what else do I think will happen in 2009 from the database perspective? For one I think that we'll see Microsoft offer some limited SQL Server cloud services. Not SSDS, but something more substantial, like the ability to create a real SQL Server 2005 database in the cloud, populate it with real tables, use stored procedures, views, and functions. I doubt we'll get alerts, SQL CLR, mail, linked servers, and many of the more advanced features. Though I wouldn't be surprised to have a SQL Server instance be able to link to a cloud database of some sort.
I also predict that we will have a CTP of the DATAllegro technology available by TechEd that showcases some of the large data warehousing technology in action. The demo that I saw already was impressive, though there is a lot of work left to do. I bet this will be a large focus in the coming year.
Business Intelligence won't take off, but my guess is between the tools Microsoft offers at a low cost and the economy that we will see some BI vendors absorbed into others. Long term investments in multi-million dollar projects are going to slow way down and that means many of these companies will be hurting financially. I wouldn't be surprised to see Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, and Sun snapping up some of these companies, perhaps even larger ones.
What won't happen? Wide-scale Vista adoption as I think this OS is larger stalled and only a streamlined, smooth, easy to use Windows 7 will get companies to move off XP, and then not until at least 2010. Live search won't make substantial inroads against Google, and I hope that we see two Service Packs (SP1 for 2008 and SP4 for 2005) in the next year.
I also don't see social media going away. My impression is that we are still discovering how to use these tools in a business sense, and with lots of layoffs and people looking for work or sales, we'll continue to see an evolution of these tools and sites as people look to connect more and more. I won't say that social networking is required, but I do think that it can give you a competitive advantage. People like the personal touch, something that social networking, blogging, and great open-ness can give you if it's done well.
For the average person, I suspect conference attendance will be down, but there should be lots of free events. Between SQLSaturday and SQLBits along with the new PASS Community Connections, hopefully you'll find some training close to home.
Steve Jones
PS - Anyone want to guess how many cell phones I'll purchase in 2009? I had 5 in 2008.
The Voice of the DBA Podcasts
The podcast feeds are now available at sqlservercentral.mevio.com to get better bandwidth and maybe a little more exposure :). Comments are definitely appreciated and wanted, and you can get feeds from there.
or now on iTunes!
- Windows Media Podcast - 37.3MB WMV
- iPod Video Podcast - 32.0MB MP4
- MP3 Audio Podcast - 6.5MB
Today's podcast features music by Everyday Jones. No relation, but I stumbled on to them and really like the music. Support this great duo at www.everydayjones.com.
I really appreciate and value feedback on the podcasts. Let us know what you like, don't like, or even send in ideas for the show. If you'd like to comment, post something here. The boss will be sure to read it.