The big security/storage crossover: Is your job safe? [Part Three: Why consumers count]

Consumers rule David Sykes' world.

"It's all about consumers," says Sykes, Symantec's Vice P resident for the Pacific region. "Trends always hit consumers first."

Sykes backs his opinion by revealing that the entities most interested in a new Symantec product that safeguards the integrity of online transactions such as internet banking has been Banks, not consumers.

The seeming contradiction comes from the fact that Banks understand that the exploits that ultimately cost them money will strike their customers long before their own enterprise-hardened systems are seriously tested.

"I'm in daily touch with enterprise customers about consumer trends," he says, as these large organisations seek to make sure that they can securely provide services to their consumer customers.

And those organisations will, he believes, need security and storage specialists to take care of the important details that add up to security their customers can rely on. Deep domain expertise will, he believes, remain important in this environment, making security and storage specialists as important as ever to employers.

Sykes does, however, emphasise that professionals in these disciplines will need to evolve their skills.

"Get interested in risk," he advises. "There will be a lot of demand for IT professionals who understand risk at a business level."

Those that attain this understanding, he believes, will soon find that combination of nous that identifies risk and technical skills to negate it will make them more than attractive to employers.

The big security/storage crossover: Is your job safe?

• Part One: The recruiter
• Part Two: The analyst
• Part Three: Why consumers count
• Part Four: The new age of abstraction