New year, same problems

As we embark on a new year, the industry hype-machine is slowly warming up to sell us new technologies that will make our jobs easier in 2007. Rest assured though that some problems will remain, like spam.

Over the last couple of months I've heard and read anecdotes from some organisations that the spam problem is as big as it's ever been. One government body recently said it found more spammers were including picture files in spam e-mails to complicate screening. I wonder how many organisations sent out warnings to users about Christmas or New Year spam e-mails containing viruses (which is almost standard practice by IT departments these days)?

So rather than ask for your technology wish-list, I'm asking whether you believe you can make serious inroads against age-old problems, like spam, this year?

In recent months ZDNet Australia has covered some organisations opting for alternatives to the usual installation of Norton Anti-Virus to fight the spam problem. The Northern Territory government opted for SurfControl, while CSC decided to give MessageLabs a try.

What sort of investment would it take for you? Increased mail server capacity? New software licensing? And can you afford it?

If you're a Cisco customer, has the networking giant's recent acquisition of IronPort Systems given you any reason for optimism?

For me, I can't help but agree with colleague Renai LeMay, who insists Google should open source Gmail's antispam algorithm, which does the job very effectively.

As Renai puts it, the world NEEDS this technology!