An odd turn of events, considering Hathaway led the administration’s 60-day review of governmentwide cybersecurity preparedness and seemed its likely choice to head up the new cybersecurity office. With the post now vacant and the list of candidates who’ve been considered for the job rumored to have reached at least 30, the administration may have a tough time finding the right person for this difficult job–and convincing him or her to accept it.

“As it stands right now, the cyber czar would have two bosses, the National Security Council and National Economic Council, as well as a chief information officer and chief technology officer,” Greg Garcia, former assistant secretary for cybersecurity and communications at the Department of Homeland Security, told Dark Reading. “In addition, that individual would have to herd all of the cats at DHS and other agencies. Those are big shoes to fill–in fact, I’m skeptical that anyone could succeed in the [cyber czar] job.”

And Garcia’s not the only one. Among other potential candidates who’ve reportedly told the White House they’re not interested: former Republican U.S. Representative Tom Davis of northern Virginia, Microsoft (MSFT) executive Scott Charney, Symantec (SYMC) Chairman John Thompson and retired Air Force General Harry Raduege Jr., the former Defense Information Systems Agency director and co-chair of the Commission on Cybersecurity for the 44th Presidency.

Or Palm (PALM), to indulge a years-old rumor. Palm is a logical target, isn’t it? Buying the company would place Dell firmly in the smartphone market it has so often expressed interest in. Can’t imagine an overture from Round Rock would go over too will with Palm’s new leadership, though. Surely Jon Rubinstein didn’t accept the CEO seat at Palm with the understanding that he might someday be working for Dell.

Goldman Sachs published its “Americas: 2009 Software Outlook” report today and it’s as dismal and ugly a forecast as you’d expect, given the current economic climate.

“The worst of the IT-spending slowdown likely remains in front of us, as we start the clock on slashed 2009 budgets,” Goldman said in the report. “We forecast 0 percent revenue growth for our group, below consensus at 5 percent, and 1 percent earnings growth, below Street at 2 percent.”

Beyond that, the firm forsees an eight percent decline in developed economy tech capital investment, with the likes of Microsoft (MSFT), Oracle (ORCL), SAP (SAP), Symantec (SYMC), CA (CA)–the so called Big 5–treading water until the economy recovers. Said Goldman, “We expect the Big 5 software companies…to benefit from more defensive revenue streams due to critical nature of functions, ’stickier’ maintenance, stronger negotiating leverage, and a likely spending consolidation to larger vendors. Hence, we assume 0 percent growth for this group in 2009.”

Ugly. Could have been worse, though.

Though Symantec was quick to remedy the false update, it didn’t do such a great job of notifying its users. In fact, it didn’t even bother to publish information about the error on its Web site–a bad idea when the Chinese media is running reports with headlines that translate roughly as “Norton manslaughter to be Chinese WinXP system to collapse.”

“I’d like to find out what specific products cause the crash (most of our clients run Symantec Corporate Edition), but the Symantec Web site notes nothing about it,” wrote one sys admin. “You’d think if you accidentally killed a few hundred thousand PCs in China, you’d mention it on your Web site hmm?, and put some links on how to recover from it.”