PC developers worry about security

Computer geeks are insecure. No, we're not talking about the cocktail party habits of software engineers—we're summarizing June survey results from attendees at PC Expo. The high-tech trade show (now known as TechXNY) attracts 50,000 people, representing a serious slice of America's technology workforce. Notwithstanding a steep decline in the number of booth displays on the exhibit floor this year, it's typically a high-profile launchpad for new electronics and computing products.

The survey of showgoers asked: "Which of these key business-technology challenges will your organization address in the next 18 months?" The answers revealed that America's techies are losing sleep about computer security, even as they design wireless products:

The item next to the bottom of the list strikes a sobering note—how will legacy applications survive in the new, wireless world?

A second survey question asked attendees to rank how "hot" products, technologies, services or issues are in today's marketplace. And again, the techies said they were excited about wireless, but worried about security. (The numbers represent the percentage who ranked each item "hot" on a scale of one to five).

With Bluetooth and 802.11b sharing fairly high ranks on the list, it's clear that engineers haven't yet decided on a wireless data standard. But since "security" and "broadband computing" are in the top three, we can deduce their primary design goals. And with "biometrics" ranked near the bottom, we know they're not concerned about physical security, but rather electronic snooping.

Finally, the survey spelled trouble for Microsoft, whose operating system and collaboration initiative ranked among the "coldest" technology trends, while upstart Linux ranked above them.

So if we can use the concerns of 50,000 engineers as a technological weathervane, the trend in 2003 should be that wireless, handheld computing is all the rage, despite its fatal flaw—data security.