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Gartner Reveals Top 10 Technologies For Next 4 Years
Dr. Jim writes "The good folks over at the Gartner Group have revealed the top 10 technologies that they believe will change the world over the next four years. The usual suspects including multi-core chips, virtualization, and cloud computing are on the list. Multicore servers and virtualization will mean that firms will need fewer boxes, and apps can be easily moved from box to box (and right out the door to an outsourced data center). Workplace social networks and cloud computing means that the need for a centralized IT department will go away. Firms will no longer need to own/maintain the boxes that they use to run their firm's apps. With no need to touch a box, there will be no need to have the IT staff co-located with the boxes."
What security?
Physics is nothing like religion. If it was, we'd have an easier time trying to raise money!
Telecommuting will finally be accepted for IT staff!
Because outsourced hosting always meets its SLAs! So your company will never need anyone who is able to talk their language and hold their feet to the fire. Oh happy day! Oh brave new world!
The article summary quotes a blog posting, *NOT* the Gartner study. Further, the blog posting only quotes the top ten items from Gartner, and provides no further data.
The blogger is passing around FUD, without supporting those statements with any information from Gartner. This is a non-article with so little data.
'Duh'. Multicore processing? Are you fucking kidding me? You have to go out of your way to buy a computer that doesn't have multiple cores. Hybrid core? Wouldn't that be covered with the video cards opening up and letting generic code run on their processors? The rest are completely obvious in the same way. Anyone who's been watching computers for the past year could have compiled that list.
"Firms will no longer need to own/maintain the boxes that they use to run their firm's apps. With no need to touch a box, there will be no need to have the IT staff co-located with the boxes."
...and in further news: Rocks, Paper, Scissors poised for a comeback as non-IT personal try to establish who it is that has travel half way across the continent to push the "on" button.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
That's not new tech. I used to skip school and augment my reality every day.
Sometimes I try to augment females' reality to trick them into thinking I'm attractive.
If you make your predictions vague enough, they have a good chance of being correct (for generous interpretations of correct).
I predict the next 4 years in technology is going to be similar to this year. This will end up being correct for generous definitions of "similar".
1. Multicore and hybrid processors
2. Virtualization and fabric computing
3. Social networks and social software
4. Cloud computing and cloud/Web platforms
5. Web mashups
6. User Interface
7. Ubiquitous computing
8. Contextual computing
9. Augmented reality
10. Semantics
So are we now to believe that a "truckers and longshoremen" skills shortage shows need for an increase of the 85,000 H-1B visas already available?
Workplace social networks and cloud computing means that the need for a centralized IT department will go away.
But borne from the ashes of the 'centralized IT department' come the 'social networking support department'. Because no matter how intuitive you make it, someone won't get it. That fact, combined with the problem that the larger your corporation becomes, the more obfuscated every little thing is (I work for GE).
Informatus Technologicus
Anyone remember the guy who's TiVo started recording a lot of gay movies? "My TiVo thinks I'm gay!"
There is a lot of room to make big mistakes in this area of computing. Contextual Computing can lead to hilarious failures.
While the article and summary want to scare IT workers ("Oh, oh -- can you hear your job going away?"), perhaps it's time to get back to the big picture: Information Technology is supposed to help people do their jobs more efficiently. So, while the article does much to suggest that server-side stuff might be getting "outsourced" to the cloud, people still need to interface with it. It'd be nice to see client systems taking steps forward in terms of reliability and ease of use, but nothing monumental is changing on that side of the equation.
But, by outsourcing/concentrating the server-side administration to the "cloud", you might free up IT workers to do less grunt work and do more in terms of process innovations, making the whole enterprise more efficient. IT workers will have to think about how they can make the business operate more efficiently, and be creative and get it implemented. Are today's IT workers ready for that level of thinking?
--
Hey code monkey... learn electronics!
Cloud computing is already here, Valve invented it this morning!
On another note, an unknown company is bringing out a sewing application that promises to push multithreading to it's limits.
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
No later than when companies notice that suddenly, surprisingly someone patents something they were on the verge of patenting themselves, when they notice that said company is somehow curiously located where their servers are.
I guess even our business captains know that putting information into hands you can't control is a BAD idea. They should know. They've been gathering ours for years, and they know what value even trivial information (like your shopping habits) has.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Distributed computing, centralized computing and back again.
Client: I can't login.
Troubleshooting Step #1: Make sure it's plugged in.
Ergo, there will always be a need for IT staff co-located with the boxes.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
Some/most of these things exist already, some of them are in use and relevant. Others are just excuses for avoiding work.
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
Cloud computing doesn't make centralized IT go away.
Amazon EC2 only provides you with servers. You still need system admins to configure and run and debug the boxes if you're doing anything remotely complicated.
It does solve provisioning issues, procurement issues and lights-out management. But that is just a sliver of centralized IT.
And having Amazon provide "remote hands" for you to replace failed hardware is not even a "centralized" part of IT. Even without cloud computing you shouldn't have your IT organization tightly coupled to where your sites are. All that you need is the occasional physical hardware replacement, and management of the facilities (power, cooling, etc).
"Firms will no longer need to own/maintain the boxes that they use to run their firm's apps. With no need to touch a box, there will be no need to have the IT staff co-located with the boxes."
How do you access the "cloud" without a computer next to you?
You have DSL embedded in your brain?
Get a clue. Companies may not have conventional desktop PCs in their offices, but they're going to have to have SOME sort of computing device - if nothing but a thin client or even just a flat screen terminal or a BlackBerry - to access the computing resources.
And those devices need servicing - if not much servicing.
Anybody who thinks computers are leaving offices is so frickin' deluded I don't know what to say.
Not to mention that your IT staff exists mostly to solve the problems with the SOFTWARE - not the hardware. And software problems aren't going away regardless of whether it's on the desk, on a server, or in the cloud.
Who deals with those problems may change. Companies may very well outsource their IT support - I am the outsource for my clients - but all that means is they'll pay more for less (except in my case, 'cause I'm cheap.) Their overall cost may go down, but in many cases they'll get poorer service because the IT staff servicing their problems isn't a member of the company or on site and thus has less comprehension of the company's needs. There's nothing like being on site and in daily contact with the staff to see what a company's problems are.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=681107 "Gartner Identifies Top Ten Disruptive Technologies for 2008 to 2012"
I fail to see how social networks or multicore CPUs have "changed the world" or will. I would think that advances in energy efficient hardware, "green" power generation, hydroponic and other greenhouse technologies (to allow for year-round, local production of food even in places where the climate is totally lame) would be more likely to "change the world," and are things that people actually NEED to happen.
No one NEEDs Facebook. I'm actively considering deleting my account, personally. No one is going to remember "mashups" in 50 years -- and their introduction is certainly going going to figure on a time line likely to go into any reputable history text book.
Unforntunaly not most. And espectially IT managers.
IT Departments tend to work on keeping things running and less time analysing the buisness needs and seeing how IT can help improve it. In places that have such departments they companies run very well. When they focus on keeping things running... Things just fail.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Was that list published 4 years ago? :P
back in 2002 it was called web services, then it was web 2.0 and a few other things. the 2008 name is cloud computing. come early 2009 they will make up another name to hype at the conventions and get eyeballs to tech news websites
what the hell is "Augmented reality"??
The only thing I could come up with is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borg_(Star_Trek)>this
Is it "more real than real"?
Or is it just the latest buzzword to describe something nobody has thought of yet?
I'm completely stumped, really I am.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Not only that, and you do make a hugely valid point, but all this IT infrastructure is ... well, it would grind office productivity to a halt if the printer is broken. Despite all the hardware, the paperless office has not yet taken off in any meaningful way. When the connection between your desktop and the printer is through a router that is on the other side of the country, and it takes 2 hours to get it working, productivity will drop significantly. To simply bleat on about moving the data center out into the cloud is blindly spewing PR like the run up to the invasion of Iraq.
Much like outsourcing has come to be more expensive, so too will 'outsourcing' your data center. I'm sure that we've all heard of DDoS attacks. How convenient will they become when your data is on the other side of a router from your workers? Yeah, the SLAs sound good on paper, but oat 4:30 on a Friday of a long weekend, when your billing processes grind to a halt, how long will it take to get fixed? My personal favorite is the data center people telling me it is an application error. The billing department is telling me that their application is giving an error that a server can't be found. My code says that there is a permission problem on a network directory, and no one left in the data center has admin rights on that box.
Yep, this outsourcing thing will work out well.
What was that old saying? If you want it done right, you have to do it yourself? Sometimes it is true, ya know?
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
wasn't the internet suppose to do a lot of that stuff?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
centralized IT department will go away.
Ohhh yesss.
Firms will no longer need to own/maintain the boxes that they use to run their firm's apps.
Ohhh! Ohhh! Ahhh!
no need to have the IT staff
Cumshot
Let's say this isn't another Gartner managerial fairy tale for a minute. Where, ***exactly*** are the cost savings? I just priced a 16-way dl380 g5 for about $5000 with drives and lots of ram. I would run out of bandwidth before I ran out of computing horsepower. That's soon to be the price of a pound of peanuts.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Yeah, this is How Gartner Works. You're not the target audience; it's middle managers at Fortune 1000 companies - you know, the kind who can pay for reports.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Once again those who "live and breathe" technology attempt to predict how technology will affect the average worker who "doesn't get" the basics of technology or care about it.
... and creating engaging content. NOT DESCRIBING SOME TECHNICAL ISSUE TO SOME "CLOUD BASED SUPPORT GEEK IN THE NEXT TIME-ZONE".
... and yes students are tech savvy - but tech savvy at using applications and devices does not give you the deductive skill needed to solve problems.
I support over 180 teaching staff and 30 administrative staff + 2000 HS students using about 700 computers.
Many of the staff are quite comfortable users - but 98% of them have their real job focus "teaching students". Yes they use technology but their focus is staying abreast of new trends in Math - science - History
Local support will not go away for a long time
Its not the years, its the mileage
Hapless Accountant:"Hey! I can't connect to our servers!"
... i think they went out of business ... sir ... your highness ... your lordship ..."
IT Manager:"Let me call our out-sourced data center that holds all our corporate data in a secure and safe off-site location"
Out-Sourced Data Center Phone Line:"bee-doo bee-doo We're sorry. The number you have dialed has been disconnected"
CEO(roaring):"Where's our data?"
IT Manager:"um
Multi-core chips WILL change the world over the NEXT four years? They ALREADY HAVE.
They've been providing massive crunch in internet routers for years.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Most of the enthusiasm for "software as a service" comes from companies selling the services. The problem they face is that most companies have already purchased the hardware and applications they need, and they don't need to buy them again. This is Microsoft's big problem. Really, once you made it to Windows 2000 and Word 97, office applications worked pretty well. So why buy them again? Most of the additions since then benefited Microsoft more than the user.
The trouble with "cloud computing" (otherwise known as "time-sharing") is that it only makes sense if you have a transient need for large amounts of compute power. That transient need also has to be at a different time than the transient needs of others. Don't put your retail system on Amazon's system; they have vast excess capacity most of the year, but in November and December, they're busy. (Amazon's primitives for "cloud computing" are well-chosen, though, and they've made some real progress on how to organize large numbers of machines. Their software would be useful without their service, and comparable open-source tools would be valuable.)
If you have a fixed load, but just don't want to run a physical data center, there are many co-location facilities like Rackspace.
How is "cloud computing" different from "grid computing", anyway?
Really, the items on this list are so old they smell bad.
Multicore processors - not exactly novel, plus it's just another way of packaging multi-processor systems that have been around for decades. The only new attribute is that they're coming down in price.
Social networks? what planet have these guys been on for the last 5 years?
Even better "user interface" at number 6.
Frankly I'm surprised that Web 2 didn't make it. Maybe they disguised that as #5, web mashups?
Hopefully no-one made the mistake of paying for this list.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
The future will be neither multithreaded nor heterogeneous. Multithreading is the work of the devil and everybody in the business should know this by now. Logic dictates that universality should be the primary objective of multicore research. So what do we have? We have incompatible multicore technologies: coarse grain, thread-based MIMD on the one hand and fine grain, data parallel SIMD on the other. Worse, the industry wants us to move to a hybrid processor, a truly hideous monster that mixes both SIMD and MIMD on a single die. Talk about a programming nightmare! No wonder there is a parallel programming crisis. The industry is clueless and so is the computer science community since they're the ones who got us into this fine mess in the first place. For a good explanation of what is wrong with parallel programming and what the solution is, read Nightmare on Core Street. Funny thing is, the solution has been around ever since programmers begin to emulate deterministic parallelism in neural networks and cellular automata. And without threads, mind you.
You won't need an IT department the day your staff just happens to become magically computer savvy and naturally knows how to exploit your computer resources to their full potential.
How do you get rid of in-house IT? Dumb down your business practices. Un-automate things. Don't try to make things talk to each other or "sync". Type things... print them... send them to the recipients. Stick to factory settings.
Now that I look at it more closely, it seems that most of those items have already "changed the world" pretty significantly.
Listing a bunch of paradigm-shifters that are years old but still on an adoption rampup may be useful when trying to plan for the future. But it's a pretty simple algorithm for generating reports, not something particularly insightful.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
At #7 they have "user interface" listed like it's some technology you can buy. Same with "semantics" at #10.
Some poor IT guy is going to have a lot of complicated explaining to do when the CIO pounds his fist on his desk and yells "go get us some user interface and semantics!"
...are we scared yet?
I might be a coward, but ...
It is always humorous to watch people try and "predict" anything about the future, especially given our current location in the flow of time and the current state of our sociopolis (which seems like a better term than "nation" at this point in history). Given the myopia of the "predictions" at hand, might I toss in my two bits:
1. Internet speeds can, theoretically, top internal data bus transfer.
2. Video cards (being highly streamlined FPUs, geared for spacial calculation)
3. Distributed processing, BEOWULF
4. Distributed filesystems, TORRENT
5. All of the above built into a strain of "Super-Linux" kernel
And hell, while we're at it,
7. Human evolution
As always is the case with massive transitions, it's been more or less apparent for some time, but you have to be a bit insane to see it. We're literally dealing with the end of corporation, decentralized supercomputing in the hands of the masses. IT? Talk to your neighbor, for Godsake! And what was it that Marx said?
Gartner is not suggesting that these are the top 10 new technologies, only that these are the top 10 technologies which will change the world over the next 4 years (presumably the technologies which will cause the greatest change).
Bingo! That's more correct than most IT managers would ever realize. Outsourcing is just that; too expensive and even more work than to keep it in-house. I've personally seen two, local, big corp data centers get sucked into the "let's let do this and save on our expensive in-house help!" Worked out great in both situations. One company scared off any good talent and got a name around the area as a lame data center to work for, plus they're paying through the nose for their administration now! They were not much to begin with anyway. The other Big Retail Co. got a sad and unpleasant shock when the "solutions provider" couldn't live up to their marketing hype; "we can build you a cluster of servers in about a hour" turned out to be "well, when you give us a month's notice and take the bundled software we provide at the revisions only we approve and support, then after that it's about an hour. Oh, and you can't upgrade any software to what you need." They did a big about face in just two year's time and recently hired back one of their admins at about a 150% salary! He just bailed for an even greener pasture. Now they're on Dice searching and hoping. It does not pay to outsource, then decide against it and hope you can find some hungry admins of high quality who don't already know what kind of crap your management pulls. Good luck with that. Seriously.
Also, I might add that outsourcing critical data is *NOT*, repeat *NOT*, going into the cloud, or over to India. There are huge obstacles to having your (health care or SOX-type, or government contract with employee info, etc.) data stored in someplace other than in your own, well-protected, data center her in the USA. It's not going to happen as there are several federal regulations that make it impossible, or really really not worth it for a number of legal reasons. That's not changing in the next four years.
This is the NSA, we're gonna geet U h@x0r5! Also, what is a h@x0r5?
Gartner is missing Unified I/O which will enable servers to have a single adapter (or dual for redundancy) that is carrying both IP and FCoE (FibreChannel over Ethernet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCoE) over a common 10GigE infrastructure. Greatly reducing cabling, management and number of connections to the server.
This isn't akin iSCSI which had the painful overhead of TCP optimizations. While not aimed at the SMB market (who iSCSI is fine for), users that manage midsize to large datacenters will not be faced with the problems at layer 8 (politics of who manages the switches, LAN/SAN or for bladecenters server team?).
pretty lame predictions. anyone in IT would have said the same (except for Augmented Reality - think it must be to do with gaming - but havent heard that before). well I expect location blogs and location social networking the next big thing..
I fail to see how virtualization can take substantial work away from any sane it department. From my own experiences it can add quite a bit of work you didnt have before. For in my work as an admin very little work has with the physical machines to do. Installing the OS takes no time at all theese days, its configuring the services that takes time. Managing SAN and a virtual enviroments takes quite some work and adds a fair bit of work you didnt have before. Virtualization is an answer if you have many small lightly loaded machines or want a test enviroment. For a heavily loaded server its just insane and a complete waste of resources. What use is a 10% saving in electricity when you loose 30% efficiency on the virtualization?
The virtualization fad will probably level out when enough people have tried it and seen what areas it fits into and not.
HTTP/1.1 400
I AM THE GREAT AND MIGHTY CLOUD! IT is dead! I shall service all your needs!
Ignore the people behind the curtain, and be sure to hire a 'cloud priest' to help interface your devices with me.
THAT IS ALL! Good day!
Loose lips lose spit.
Can be found here. As you can see: nothing to see here, move along.
right now if the secretary could remember her password from the start of her vacation to the end. The need for IT staff is not going to go away. Nearly half my work now is more business analytics and helping users understand how to write queries and understand data. Along with resetting passwords, fixing printers, fixing BSOD. All the virtualization in the world cannot protect you from the BSOD! Even if you take applications and servers away, you still have a wide range of users using client machines for access. The IT Department is going away no time soon.
IT workers will have to think about how they can make the business operate more efficiently, and be creative and get it implemented.
Puh-lease. Today's IT workers can't get our users to access network file shares rather than filling the mail spool with the same attachments (And a million revisions thereof) over and over and over... And in the few cases I've seen where people (always at least "engineers", not just your typical office staff) do use a NAS, they constantly come asking for help when they try to send outside contacts links to internal files. It seems that people have some sort of mental wall around the ideas of "local" and "not local", with no middle-ground possible. And god forbid you actually make such access secure - Users will actually burn CDs and pass them back and forth rather than even attempt to navigate the simplest of login prompts.
So no, I don't worry about finding myself unneeded any time soon - Regardless of how easy the technology gets to use, the actual users still won't get it. And they'll need us to help them get that 10.1MB file (that the email system keeps rejecting) to Fred in Accounting - Who will then need our help opening the file.
Does anyone else wonder whether anything outside of the IT realm might possibly be important to the future?
Why are these people still in business?
I can't remember a single insightful thing they ever had to say.
Their predictions are usually blindingly obvious or wrong.
"IT is going to become much more about information and how it can be used to help the business grow and prosper."
Management speak just keeps getting more & more powerful. Feel the power of these sentences.
"you need to know what your firm does, and even more importantly, how it does it."
We need to take charge people.
IT is going to be much more about IT. Got to grow & prosper to grow and prosper. Got to succeed to succeed. Got to build the makings of greatness to make greatness.
Yes! At last some people with common sense. I'd hire them straight away.
And no, I'm not joking. I will always prefer a moderately skilled IT guy who has a sense of what the firm needs to achieve and how he can contribute to it, over the most brilliant IT mind that's only interested in maintaining his servers in all their glorious gleaming perfection.
I need the first person. On-site, for direct support and face-to-face discussion of how we can best achieve our goals. If I ever need the second, I'll contract someone in India. People who don't understand our business are a dime to a dozen.
Unfortunately, the reality is different. The reality is that when IT managers "rationalize", they move the boxes to India, fire the people I need in my organization, and "replace" them with people in India who are unable to fill the void, no matter how brilliant they are. I've seen the future, and I don't like it.
It all works out in the end. Rather profitable, as well
...are we scared yet?
Virtualization is not new - and it is not the "solution" either.
Using virtualization to get "fewer boxes" is stupid. You can get fewer boxes by running several services in one box without virtualization too. If the box is powerful enough to do that with virtualization, then it has even more power without.
And better: Without virtualization there is only one OS, so the staff doesn't need to maintain multiple OSes on that single box. That means less work. I guess we'll see a wave of de-virtualization once the virtualization fad passes. This tech has its uses, but box count reduction isn't really one of them.
Cringely's article is gold.
/. -- the Free Republic of technology.
"With no need to touch a box, there will be no need to have the IT staff co-located with the boxes."
Looks like my workplace is already starting to adopt this policy! Nobody from IS was in the building all day today. I guess they don't have the copier set up with their cloud-based multicore social information technology 2.0 presence yet- it was jammed all day. I tagged it "jammed" with a post-it, though.
http://lwn.net/Articles/234645/
The jobs are not going away, but every year there are fewer of them. The ratio of users to techs has grown every year since the late 1990's. That's nothing new though, and it will continue for a bit before finally hitting a ratio where you really can't do with fewer people.
Anyone else ever get the feeling that nearly all blog postings on slashdot are just favors to someone with very little useful information contained within the actual post?
Yeah yeah, I know, "You must be near here, right?"
The only thing Gartner ever gets right is how to bleed money from suckers. You know those goofballs sit around and throw darts at a board and claim that to be the next big hit.
Chief Editor: "Hey we need an article about the future of computing."
Tech Ed: "Hang on I'm busy updating my facebook profile."
CE: "Damn. You sure do spend a lot of time on that site."
TE: "Yeah. It's totally the site of the future."
CE: "Really? What else do you do with your computer? Can you put it into a top ten list? Then we can have someone that has diarrhea of the mouth write the report."
TE: "Yeah I can do that, I just sent off the email. Are we done then?"
CE: "Oh, hell yeah, lets go get drunk."
TE: "Sweet, now get out of my office so I can continue to e-stalk the high school girl that lives next door to me."
Gartner is perfect for IT professionals like the Director of IT at our company. My IT Director also keen to listen to all kind of outside IT professionals who come and go to validate my work. My IT Director needs all kind of reassurances that our IT is secure, our IT is set up the way it should be, possibly in chart or other visual formats. My Director of IT also thinks that there are certain things that should not be as they are. It would be much easier of course if my IT Director had any formal training or background in IT, but my IT Director does not have time for that, since there are so many other senior executive areas needing the same attention. Some day I really wonder, how in the fuck has it happened, that IT never really become a legit profession in the corporate world and nobody wonders how can someone at a public company claim to be Director of IT without any related education or experience - other than being "IT Director".
1. Canned Food
2. Solar Panels
3. Gerber Knives
4. Crossbows
5. Wind-a-ble AM/SW radios
6. Water Purification Tablets
7. Synthetic Fibre Parkas
8. Thermal Underclothes
9. First Aid Kits
10.Synthetic Fibre High-Durability Sleeping Bags
That is, once Peak Oil devastates world economy, governments, disease control, and otherwise any form of civilization as we know it.
Gartner has release another one of their polls and technology talking points! Lets all throw out everything our own experience, and judgement would lead us to conclude and get or strategies in line with their latest top 10 list as quickly as possible. I hear the even put more effort into these things then Letterman does!
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
as soon as I read your comment- I had to roll up and make sure it wasn't submitted by Roland.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
...with a couple of deep dish pizza's.
Man, that pepperoni and cheese with onion was some great augmentation.
How will you augment your reality today?
P.S. Web Mashups are soooooo 2 years ago.
The rest of their items seem reasonable, except the ones that - correct me if I'm wrong - used a bunch of buzzwords to say "do stuff better."
... also, I can kill you with my brain.
My experience with IT at my job is that the people who do SAP have the knowledge (they come from the mainframe era), but the people who do the PCs don't (they are people that think they know about computers because they can find the on switch and know how to reboot using Ctrl-Alt-Del).
as always : out-sourcing or off-shoring ? Our IT department consists of only a couple of in-house people, the rest is out-sourced. However, these out-sourced people are always on-site, so this does nor make a difference in head count, only in bookkeeping strategy.
We don't need Gertner to know that!
All those buzzwords have appeared dozens of times, at an increasing rate, in all our favourite IT news sites.
Like SlashDot.
User Interface and Ubiquitous computing are "the technologies of the future" since 30 years now!
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
Having used Gartner for years, the quality of the analysts varies considerably, and it helps to get to know them over time.
The best example of seeing jobs go away is the model represented by 3Tera's Applogic. Bundle an entire datacenter and move it from place to place.
The problem with most IT folks is that they feel they're in charge of the factory floor, rather like steel workers, and just as short sighted. Several Federal IT folks have seen the 3Tera and indeed 'see the handwriting on the wall' no matter how the traditional folks squawk. Nicholas Carr's latest book sort of hints at this.
The answer will be to reinvent ourselves as you suggest.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
... of xenophobic national security laws, preventing such systems from legally connecting to networks outside of their primary country. While this might limit the loss of IT jobs to outsourcing to some extent, the legal boundaries could prevent such decentralized systems from ever functioning to their true and most efficient potential.
One only has to look at how lousy the broadband industry is performing within the United States versus most foreign nations broadband networks to get an idea of what to expect. Whether it's fears of the "mafiaa" suing network providers over piracy concerns, or simply the network providers themselves refusing to update their networks to milk the consumer as much as possible, it's not hard to imagine the countless ways we'll manage to screw ourselves based upon our own fears of each other.
8==8 Bones 8==8
If I understand this correctly, I believe that Gartner is being Naive and/or out of touch with reality. I find it hard to believe that any company of any size that depends on its computer's would entrust their critical data and functions to systems not under their control. The entire industry comes down to control. Who controls your music ? Who controls your movies ? Who controls what you see and your news ? Governments try to gain control, We individual (usually) try to maintain our control.
So Why would a company voluntier to surrender control over a critical business function. I don't see it happening. I gotta admit, when I hear a manager quoting Gartner, I usually sigh in resignation. You have a manager who cannot think for themselves. Lately, I like Microsoft and and the CIA more than I like Gartner.
Firstly, I have never, ever seen anyone *truly* interested in training someone from IT on "the business", let alone before the hiring process (the entry-requirement being "3 years of Oracle certification" needed to be the door greeter... why are you surprised when they polish their disk arrays?) And, your "business" is often jealously protected, only for your chosen few.
You hire IT because you are under huge latent pressure to do something technological. You then assign that person to some technological-heavy task or throwing your garbage over the fence, which may takes months. You then ignore their need to learn, participate and then stay active in the raw business activity.
And if they are technically good, you will burden them with unending technical tasks as there are never enough truly technically savvy people around when you need them.
Finally, you will make them unending answerers-of-the unanswerable? Why does the printer not work? I have a Presentation in 5 minutes dammit and I can't print my slides! ad-nauseum.
These are self-fulfilling and result in what you see. how can they know your business? If you are not that way, great; but generalists are not valued anywhere; I personally have left the field and only cherry-pick -exactly- because of these issues.