Shaping the future a tricky task

Mark Bregman

Mark Bregman has the power to shape the future and he's not afraid to use it, even if it kills his company's products.

"It [technology] gives you as an individual the opportunity to amplify your influence," he says. "Think about the guy who designed the iPod, he's sitting there saying, 'Wow, I changed the world'."

At security software giant Symantec, Bregman heads research labs, emerging technologies, working standards and develops the technological strategy.

But the challenge of predicting the future can have unfortunate side-effects.

"We could easily come to the conclusion that there's a business that doesn't even exist that we need to create," he says. "We may have to create the business that makes our own products obsolete."

Bregman says his approach is to challenge the accepted wisdom.

"It's very easy in business to decide to minimise the risk, take the easy path but, in the long term, it's not very satisfying."

Bregman was chief technology officer at data storage and server management specialist Veritas Software before it merged with Symantec last month.

He says the interaction between the businesses is generating new possibilities. Since the merged company now makes data storage and the virus protection for it, synergies arise.

"If we integrate them at the kernel level you could have an anti-virus system that really could trust the file system," he says.

But Bregman has to balance the possibilities with customer demand.

One of Symantec's projects was inspired by discussions with financial institutions that run hundreds of applications across thousands of servers.

Humans are not efficient enough "air traffic controllers" to do that, Bregman says, so the company created a market-place bidding model, with competing applications using fictitious budgets to bid for server time.

"The application knows that it has to finish by a certain time, so as it gets closer and closer to that deadline it's willing to pay more for resources."

Bregman says the project could become a product, but "not for a few years". Yet should it never eventuate, this would not be considered a failure.

Symantec's 10-year technological outlook is updated annually, taking account of opinions from inside and outside the company, and the changing global socio, political and economic climate.

"It's not good enough to just imagine what technology can do," he says. "You've got to put it in the context of all these other factors and, when you boil all that together, you can come up with a viewpoint on where we're headed."

It's a viewpoint with the digital revolution firmly at its core.

"If you go back to the 19th century business was managed with gold. When you get to the 20th century it was managed with paper, and as we get into the beginning of the 21st century, it's all electronic."

This shift is also being felt in the home, with digital cameras and computers replacing traditional photo albums as the vessel for a lifetime of memories.

"You'd be pretty upset if you lost them all," Bregman says.

Mark Bregman

Who: Chief technology officer for security software giant Symantec. =
Favourite gadget: Treo - "I call it my brain prothesis."
Next big thing: Data protection for the home user. "You've got all your photos on your PC, wouldn't it be great if they were safe."
Alternative career: Wine-maker.
Spare time: Sailing.
Favourite sci-fi movie: Dune