Perhaps it's only fitting that I picked this week to be my last at eWEEK.

When Apple's market valuation surpasses that of Google, when style wins over substance, then maybe it really is time to get out of the game.

Yes, Google is capable of evil, and incapable of delivering 100 percent uptime. But people who think Google isn't enterprise-ready because of that need to re-adjust their lenses. I've suffered more internal corporate network outages than most of you have had hot meals.

At least Google doesn't claim it was "user error."

Yes, I'm leaving eWEEK, but not without regrets. A tiny French lady once sang about having no regrets, but she was full of it. We all have regrets--we just hope that what we move on to becomes worth more than what we leave behind.

I had the true honor of working with superbly talented people such as Stephen Wellman, Debra Donston, Eric Lundquist, Mike Vizard, John Hazard, John Pallatto, and Jeff Burt. I'm going to miss out on being part of eWEEK's triumph over the tech media landscape. And I will miss them personally.

But I'm striking out, kind of on my own, with a start-up I hope everyone will hear about later this year.

Can't say more about it or, believe me, I would.

And by the end of the year, a lot of other unexpected things will happen:

- Seeing the handwriting on the wall, EMC will sell its entire stake in VMware to Cisco, which is desperate to gain a greater foothold in the data center and keep Microsoft out;

- Stung by negative publicity around its one-size-fits-all maintenance plan, SAP will offer all customers with fewer than 100 employees free maintenance for a year;

- Having occupied every niche in the software-on-demand space, a bored Marc Benioff will start selling perpetual licenses of SFA on CDs; and

- Google will agree to pay royalties on all copyrighted material appearing on YouTube, thus settling its lawsuit with Viacom and driving its market capitalization back where it should be. It will then buy out Sumner Redstone's share in Viacom and use YouTube as a distribution channel for new episodes of The Daily Show.

You'll read all about it on the pages of eWEEK, and so will I, because there's no better place to "get" the news in IT.

Thanks to everyone for reading and contributing to the conversation. The world may not revolve around technology, but technology has always and will continue to influence every aspect of our lives. So please keep thinking about IT and keep the conversation alive.

--Michael Hickins