by Chuck Kisselburg

The world is going through tough economic times in this day and age.  It is both interesting and alarming to watch the events unfold as the economy continues to spin down.

In the early 2000s the world suffered through a similar predicament with the bursting of the dot com bubble.  During that time much of the technical sector of our economies were decimated, especially those local economies that relied primarily upon the technical industry.  Speaking from first hand knowledge, the San Francisco Bay Area/Silicon Valley was hit very hard, thus taking years to come back.

In today’s economic climate the affects are more widespread with companies from different industry sectors not only laying off employees, they are laying off employees by the thousands.  Then there are the other businesses that are flat going out of business!  In the US figures point to the rise in unemployment in 98% of the metro areas.   A recent article, titled “Computer industry ranks third among job cuts” talks about job losses across industries, with the computer industry not escaping the effect.  In the UK 30% of the businesses have been shuttered.  Also, last November prominent US-based venture capital (VC) firms have been sending out the message that you had better “slash” now else risk going out of business!  Personally speaking I have seen the presentations and they do not mince words.  “Only those that cut jobs now will be seen as strong, thus will be the ones to survive.”  !!!!!  Companies have heeded the VC words.

There is no doubt there is a lot of gloomy news out there.  What does this mean?  To be specific, what does this mean for security?  Will there be enough layoffs and slashing of budgets that security will be a forgotten line item?

Is it all doom and gloom out there?  I have been spending time trying to “look under the hood”, as it were, to see how bad things really are.  When looking back at the dot com bust of the early 2000s companies cut spending and staff quite heavily and quickly.  Once the economy was looking stronger it took a while for companies to staff back up.  In today’s environment I am not seeing cuts in technology to the extent of the dot com bust.  Yes, you hear about very large layoffs in the news, but when I look at various job placement sites, the “careers” section of companies and others, such as Craigs List and LinkedIn I am struck by the number of jobs that keep trickling in; whether the jobs be for developers, QA, VP of Engineering, and yes, even security.  Not only are these position contracting positions, they are also full time employment positions for companies of various sizes and at different levels within the organization.

Further analysis illustrates that that the technical community is not as bad off as what I witnessed in the early 2000s.  For starters a colleague of mine read an analysis from the Gartner Group that basically said while IT budgets are being cut, they are being cut by less than 5%.  According to the story, “Madison Avenue Sees Online As Safe Haven Amid ‘09 Economic Storm”  the outlook for 2009 is change in national advertising will be strongest with Internet-based advertising.

Outlook for National Advertising

Also, recently, another story came out, “Despite Economy, IT Security Salaries Are On The Rise”

While all the “general” news has centered around the economic gloom, and I don’t wish to minimize the effect this economy has on those who have lost their jobs or companies that have closed, looking under the hood seems to yield a slightly different trend.  Companies seem to realize the massive IT cuts from the early 2000s resulted in a long ramp up to bring things back up to speed.  With Internet-based advertising being seen as the strongest area for national advertising in 2009 AND IT security salaries on the rise, this tells me the world has shifted since the early 2000s, thus realizing the importance the Internet has on one’s global economic presence; whether that be reputation and brand protection for companies/organizations to protecting global economic presence for countries, registries, registrars, companies, hosting providers and ISPs.  It is clear that protecting one’s customer base is more important than ever.  Protecting reputation and brand is key to maintaining the competitive edge that brings in revenue from the customers that purchase services.

It is also clear that while companies have to become smarter with how they execute their budgets, it is wise to keep in mind what services can be effectively outsourced to those who are in the business.  For example, CommunityDNS’s Anycast network provides DNS resolution services on a global basis.  Already providing services for over 112 million names globally, CommunityDNS’s Anycast network is the fastest, largest network, providing full redundancy while also geographically isolating activity of “unfriendlies” who wish to create harm towards your reputation, brand, economic presence and your customers.

With the global economy in such straights these days, it is more important than ever to maintain and grow the number of customers that result in revenue.  Therefore, for entities to survive the best this economy has to offer, security is one of the items that will have a definite affect on retaining and growing the bottom line.  While I might be a bit biased when it comes to the importance of security, I am pleased to see, when looking under the hood, organizations and countries also appreciating the importance of security.