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IT Growth: Exponential No More
BreadMan writes "The Economist has has an article about growth in the IT industry coming off a period of unsustainable growth. Compares IT to growth industries of the past like railroads and automobiles."
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In our case the "next great surge" would be the handhelds and wireless technologies, which will represent the major IT knowledge investments in the upcoming years... until the bubble pops again.
Time to get back hacking this GBA again.
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What bothers me is that they assume that "IT" is one technology. In fact it is several, and I'd assume that most of them have not been discovered. It's not that long ago when Internet wasn't in the radar of The Economist reporters...
Sure, explosive growth isn't going to continue in any industry that has reached relative maturity. It's far from doom and gloom, however, and the article doesn't discuss one of the most important effects of IT buildups.
While there's no question much of the economy's boom was based on hype, there are still real, bottom line reasons for strength -- and numero uno, IMHO, is the strong growth in productivity. IT-related expenditures get a lot of credit for this growth.
Railroads and automobiles aren't fair comparisons, because they are essentially 'fixed-function.' Once you can ship things anywhere inexpensively, what else will drive railroad growth? "A little faster" isn't a fundamental change. Unlike these examples, IT infrastructure is constantly evolving, adding new ways to increase productivity.
For example, "B2B" exchanges are no longer flashy, but still growing like crazy and boosting efficiency. There are many other applications with strong potential but currently limited real-world usage, such as e-learning, knowledge management, and video conferencing -- and plenty more great ideas still being dreamed up.
A-Bomb
You remind me of me back when I was in college. Just mainly wanted to do it because I loved programming. Most of the other people in my class just wanted "easy money." The majority of them did only the minimal amount of programming needed to pass whatever class they were taking at the time. The really sad part is that even thogh you may not be "in-it-for-the-big-bucks" you can bet just about anyone else in the software industry is. In one talk with a former IT manager, he scorned my reasons for being a programmer and was flabergasted that I didn't care about is mult-thousand dollar bonus, he was planning to get upon the projects completion. If you just love to do programming, you really don't need college for it. Looking back on my college days, I feel like I got scammed. Most of what I learned was on my own, between work and classes. The college degree is a costly ticket to IT slavedom, where your day is spent making some jerk at the top rich. My advice to you is work a good-paying day-job and program in your sparetime doing open-source or something that helps your day-job. The ideal setup would be to own your own business and do your own web development and information management.
..is that you're foolish to beleive that a job as a programmer or engineer is going to be really hard to find. If you are low skilled, say just a Java programmer or something like that...you know the type, then sure, it may be bleak. But think about all the devices that are out and even more coming out that need EE people to make, programmers to program etc. Perhaps being a network guy or sys-admin is going to be harder to come across but I think the future is going to be even greater for programmers, at least programmers with a good foundation such as a CS degree or by someone who is enthusiastic and self taught.
Think about it, PC's will soon be the smallest market for IT, so if your career is based around writing business apps or PC related software then you may be in trouble. But with so many things going digital, there will be greater demand for people to make these systems, and they will be complex systems.
Although the job market is trash right now for IT, it is trash for just about everything else, except maybe a bankruptcy lawer.
You log onto a site like dice or monster and you see thousands of jobs. The only problem is these jobs demand skill and knowledge. Real knowledge, not the kind that a certifcate from a 5 month program gives you.
I hope I don't come across as a troll, but seriously, most of these certificates A+, MCSE etc are nothing more than going to a factory and reading a really long manual on how to operate a machine. We need people for this of course, but don't expect to be paid well for it anymore as we have found out that anyone can do this if they are willing to put a few months effort into it.
Go back to school right now and learn something real. If not, at least go to the library and read some hard material, the kind that takes a while to learn. These are the types of people needed desperatly right now. People are having a terrible time sifting through the people who can actually solve problems that are defined with the domain of their limited skill set.
I don't know, just some thoughts, but did you really think it was going to last? Eaasy come, easy go goes the saying. I'm convinced if the unemployed IT "professionals" took time off to learn some things, like how a computer really works, they would see the rewards. Then again, nothing is guarenteed and I need as little competition as possible to keep my wallet fat.
We talk about the need for robust software, well become a robust programmer. Don't paint yourself into a corner by putting it all on X technology. Learn the foo and you can adapt to anything.
"If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer