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Are Information Technology's Glory Days Over?
Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that computer science students with the entrepreneurial spirit may want to look for a different major, because if Thomas M. Siebel, founder of Siebel Systems, is right, IT is a mature industry that will grow no faster than the larger economy, its glory days having ended in 2000. Addressing Stanford students in February as a guest of the engineering school, Siebel called attention to 20 sweet years from 1980 to 2000, when worldwide IT spending grew at a compounded annual growth rate of 17 percent. 'All you had to do was show up and not goof it up,' Siebel says. 'All ships were rising.' Since 2000, however, that rate has averaged only 3 percent. His explanation for the sharp decline is that 'the promise of the post-industrial society has been realized.' In Siebel's view, far larger opportunities are to be found in businesses that address needs in food, water, health care and energy. Though Silicon Valley was 'where the action was' when he finished graduate school, he says, 'if I were graduating today, I would get on a boat and I would get off in Shanghai.'"
Well considering his creation - siebel - is one of the biggest steaming piles of crap i've ever seen... why would i listen to him?
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Siebel is absolutely right: IT's "glory days" are over. And good riddance, I say: the spectacular growth of IT has attracted all the wrong people and stifled real innovation. And "all the wrong people" includes people like Siebel himself.
If there is less of a get-rich-quick mentality, maybe people can return to focusing on innovation and long term planning again.
Let's not forget that computing is now accepted as a new way of doing science--going beyond experiments and theorizing (and way beyond what we can do with mathematics in complex, highly interacting multi-agent systems. Data mining is exploding; just take a look at Freakonomics and there you have it: a hotshot economist who does nothing but interesting data mining.
Then along comes this suit and brings this stupid false dichotomy: because there is demand for other stuff, like food; demand for IT is stabilizing?
I am from Brazil (thank you for your sympathy) where global demand for food will probably benefit our economy (and hurt other industries like IT, due to a rising currency), but seriously, WTF? The only news here is that this dude cannot reason very sharply and shouldn't be invited again.
No IT is actually mature. And with a mature industry there are less opportunities.
BUT, what also can be said is that without IT there is no industry. IT is at the heart of every industry, and hence the focus has changed. Namely you would focus on the industry and make sure that you know IT.
So if you were to seek out a niche in energy, good for it, but you better know how to use a computer, and potentially write a program.
And if you are going to do IT, you better learn a programming langauge that can be applied to a specific industry. For example I am in the financial industry. And I am not having a hard time looking for work. Why? Because I am act as a junior trader. I know how to place trades, watch the market and manage my positions. And on top of it I can write all of the data mining routines that our hedge fund needs.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
I'm glad someone has the balls to say it: Universities are still pumping out IT graduates into an already crowded job market. It's like these kids have shown up to the California Gold Rush after all the gold has gone. IT has well and truly jumped the shark. There will still be jobs, but not enough to support the hordes of unemployed IT people out there. The parties over. Sorry you didn't score, but it's time to go home anyway.
But fear not, because Uncle CuteSteveJobs has a backup plan for you: Biotech. Bioinformatics is a new are and lets even little old you try and crack the genetic code. Hunt through DNA. Discover proteins. Build new drugs, all on your PC. Open source your discoveries, or sell out to Big Pharma.
You'll need to learn a bit of Chemistry, Biochemistry and Bioinformatics. Take heart: It's said Bioinformatics is closer to IT than it is to either of the former. Think of it as learning another language. That .NET isn't exactly cutting it these days, is it?
You'll be curing people and doing far more to help the world. And it's a lot more useful than doing another useless social networking website. Let me help you get started:
1. Download Chimera (It's free!)
https://www.cgl.ucsf.edu/cgi-bin/chimera-get.py?file=win32/chimera-1.3-win32.exe
2. File > Fetch by ID > PDB=1BGX [Fetch] ...wait... Actions > Atoms & Bonds > Show Only ...rotate with mouse...
3. That molecule is a polymerase. It can run down a DNA chain, unzip it, and build a protein as it goes. Yes, a little protein nanomachine? How cool is that? And to think you wanted to write web sites instead. C'mon. Try doing something useful! ;)
>Data mining is exploding; just take a look at Freakonomics and there you have it: a hotshot economist who does nothing but interesting data mining.
Yes, but what was he first? A computer programmer or an economist? He was an economist first who happened to learn how to use a computer. That is the way that the industry is shifting.
The industry is stablizing for those that are general programmers. And what is opening are specialized niches of people who understand the business and the computer. As I work in a hedge fund I cannot imagine any fund these days not having quants or algo-programmers at their disposal. Guess what I did about 4 years ago? I switched from being a general programmer to a specializing quant/algo-programmer.
If I had to advise somebody today I would say learn a field first, and then make sure that you can write the code in that field. That is the best combination. Could you first learn the code and then the field? Well sure you can, but business will prefer the other guy first. After all most companies and people in the field don't really care about the code anymore. After all most of the code these days is written in "very safe" languages where it is hard to shoot yourself in the foot.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
I disagree here...
You have chemical engineers, mechanical engineers, electrical engineers and system engineers. Very different and very specialized. Is there some overlap? Sure a bit, but generally very unique and very different. I am a mechanical engineer and that means anything that moves belongs to me. Civil engineers ensure that nothing moves, and system engineers ensure that the project moves.
But there is nothing wrong with specialization since with specialization we have a mature industry and we are moving forwards.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
The reason for IT's growth during late 90's and early 2000's was because it was new, great technology.
Actually I'd say it was because the cost/benefit ratio came within reach for a large number of applications that could benefit from IT solutions. Computers had already existed for a long time, but replacing phones, typewriters and hordes of analysts, accountants and other 'manual-IT' workers with computers that'd do the same job for a vastly higher price wasn't very useful.
This doesn't really make sense. IT has lots of opportunities too.
Indeed. IT for ITs sake has never been much more than a scam. IT is something you use to address various needs. In, for example, health care, where IT is vastly underutilized (systems to assist medical diagnosis, to prevent misdiagnosis, track drug interaction to a larger extent, computer assisted surgery, etc, etc). If other fields have opportunities, IT has opportunities in those fields.
Growth rates may become more tied to specific industry segments, but that's because most of the current useful things that 'everyone' was doing, communications, bookkeeping, typing and presentations, wont experience the same mass-affordability and cost/benefit threshold traverse anymore. But the fields that do grow are likely to also do so through IT improvements, in everything from food and water logistics, farm automation, healthcare IT, smart energy usage/production, etc.
James Bessen and Robert Hunt did some interesting research at the federal reserve. What they found is that software patents tend to substitute for R&D. The study shows that over a 20 year period, investment in R&D suffered a major decline, apparently to finance software patents, patent searches, litigation and the like.
That might be a better explanation for the decline in IT perceived by Siebel. Or, maybe Siebel isn't happy with his patent portfolio.
You can find that study here.
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While this is true, the simple fact is IT will die a slow death, just as our manufacturing and auto manufacturing has. Why? Free Trade is a lie. Your company can't compete with a Chinese one, because we don't allow you to poison us and fill our air, water, and land with toxins, yet thanks to 'free trade" you are supposed to. You can't compete with an Indian who pays only 20K for a Master's degree, yet thanks to H1-B and "free trade" you are supposed to pay off your 100K in student loans and survive on the same wages he does.
The IT industry will be gutted, just as so many others before it, because our treasonous lawmakers keep taking bribes from foreign nationals and multinational corporations while spouting off about "free trade" but it is all a lie. The corporations will simply give the IT jobs to their H1-B slaves or if not allowed to import more slaves will simply move to places like India and China, where they can pay a pittance and pollute all they want. Yet they will be given the same treatment as those who actually pay their taxes and manufacture here in America. Wake up and realize free trade is a lie! Notice how they will label this and anything that actually supports hiring Americans "protectionist"? Yet countries like India and China would never allow this kind of crap, they are too nationalistic to fall for it. India is building their own Aerospace and defense industries now so they won't have to import from countries like us.
Anyone who goes into IT now is simply a fool. They are a fool because they will never be able to compete against the Indian and the Chinese, yet thanks to "free trade" they will be expected to, and to live on their wages. Free trade is a lie.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.