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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.'"
It's just obvious. The reason for IT's growth during late 90's and early 2000's was because it was new, great technology. Now its getting common.
In Siebel's view, far larger opportunities are to be found in businesses that address needs in food, water, health care and energy.
This doesn't really make sense. IT has lots of opportunities too. Its true that "sure ways to get rich" times might be over, but its not like the other indrustries have those anymore.
In other news... Thomas M. Siebel is no longer being asked to come speak at colleges.
If everything anyone ever said about IT and computers came true, we would all have 640K memory.
if I were graduating today, I would get on a boat and I would get off in Shanghai
So you'd be in a foreign country with no visa, no local language skills and no experience in any professions. I'm guessing his business is going downhill too.
It seems as if the only tech job left is SysAdmin; I wonder why that spot is always left open...
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has it's limits" - Albert Einstein
> businesses that address needs in food, water, health care and energy
guess which field in these businesses will address those challenges? the Information Technology field is my guess.
At some point, the efficiencies of a new technology will be fully achieved. Then it's time for a new technology.
I would say microcomputers have largely gone through their cycle. The internet not so much.
Well considering his creation - siebel - is one of the biggest steaming piles of crap i've ever seen... why would i listen to him?
If you cannot keep politics out of your moderation remove yourself from the Mod Lottery.. NOW!
His explanation for the sharp decline is that 'the promise of the post-industrial society has been realized.'
Evolution and transformation in technology doesn't happen on a linear time line. It goes in streaks, followed by times where the previously disruptive technologies retrench and normalize. That lasts until the next transformative technology comes along.
Just because we're in a phase of technology normalization doesn't mean it's going to stay that way. I think he's taking kind of a short view of tech history.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
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.
Technical progress often takes the form of a repetitive S-curve [see figure 4 in the .pdf] It could be that we're just in a somewhat horizontal part of the curve now, and the industry will experience another boom in the near future.
So since we are now in the business of moving information around, what need is there for IT? Is he kidding? Post Industrial also is another stupid term for service economy which is another way of saying the middle class is dieing because the jobs that supported it best are now overseas, but that is "ok" These are the clues I see to say this guy isn't worth listening to seriously.
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! ;)
From TFA:
The article goes on to point out the obvious, that the percentage growth of an industry will decline as the installed base rises over time. Absolute growth in IT will continue - though it may not be gangbusters of old, IT will never be stagnant.
As other posters here have pointed out, many, (many) industries depend on the support infrastructure that IT provides to work effectively and efficiently. This will not change overnight. While some of this infrastructure has been substantially commoditized over the last 10 years or so, there will always be challenges that non-technical team-members cannot solve themselves. These challenges will require the participation of and collaboration with technologists in organizations that want to function at the high-performance end of the bell curve.
If the Government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law;
Utter nonsense. Siebel's view may have some merit when applied to those business problems that have largely been solved--payroll, HR, general ledger, etc. But as technology advances (and business models change), there will be entirely new areas for IT and consequently, IT employment. There may not be much growth in the existing job positions, but those who understand computer systems will have opportunities that we simply can't imagine yet. Stay tuned and stay the course.
...we can't find enough people. ... So few are able to really learn on their own...
Bullshit. Either you're in east buttfuck or your company has unreasonable expectations. I bet the latter.
I bet your company has the laundry list of a shit load of skills and yet, if a candidate walked in and told you that they'd learn on their own time any skills they don't have, you'd send them packing.
I had once an interview with a manager who asked me what would I do if I had to change a technology or something on the job or make up for lack of a skill. I replied that I would head down to my local Border's (they have the best tech section) and buy a book and start cramming. He said that was the correct answer. He moved on before the hiring was done and they got a new manager who wanted the laundry list. Of course, he says "He can't get enough "qualified" people.
There are plenty of qualified people. You people just need to get your heads out of your ass and hire people not skills. Because, if you keep that up, your organization will never keep up with the times.
IBM used your excuse and it was just a cover to move all their technical people overseas.
. . . like the one which made Siebel his fortune. I'm an ex-enterprise software sales guy myself, and have many friends still in the business, some of whom worked for Siebel "back in the day" and have been on sales calls with Siebel (the man, not the company) himself. Most are of the consensus that the "glory days" are indeed long behind us (as in ten years behind us). In fact, one of my mentors recently told me, "enterprise software is dead." I certainly wouldn't tell a young college grad to go get rich selling software to big companies these days (though maybe to the federal government). It's easy to understand his myopic statement when you consider his background (former Larry Ellision disciple and ex-Oracle guy who pioneered selling "value selling" CRM apps into big business for mega dollars).
Here, however, Siebel is ignoring continuing advances in computing hardware, raw processing power and storage (multi-core architectures, SSDs, 64-bit OSes and gobs of fast memory, and other things which software has yet to really take advantage of), as well as other related things like nanoelectronics and continued innovation in materials sciences. The software just hasn't caught up yet to allow developers to take full advantage of these things and build out the next generation of applications.
In short, the more connected our world becomes, and the more people inhabit it, the more data we will create. There will always be a needs to collect, organize, and process this data, and attempt to draw meaningful conclusions from it, because that is what people do when they try to understand the nature of things. Perhaps IT from Siebel's world view (first generation enterprise software applications) is on the downslope, but I guarantee you that within the next decade you will see new ways of working with information that Siebel and co. could never have imagined.
After the bubble burst, back around 2001, and students started focusing on economic related major and getting their mba so they could go into banking/wall street. That worked out great.
As a multitime CTO, I can assure you now that IT is now "just" another business arm.... it is hard, boring, unrewarding and accusatorial. Overly accountable, ultra bureaucratic, under-resourced and now infested with leaches. On my 17th year in this gig, I gave it up for online retail? Why? PROFIT.
Pay me 180k as a senior tech guy working bullshit hours with bosses who are basically fuckwits, retarded morons who call themselves "programmers" and useless sysadmins.... or give me decent Human hours, a GREAT PROFIT and some decent people with personalities (not corporate zombies on a brain-eat fix) and Im outta hear.... see-ya IT....
The door will not be hitting me on the way out.
Tell your children to avoid a job in IT like the Black Death. It is not funny.
Just bought a new quantum computer, but I'm uncertain how it works.
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.
The diversity and expression of human opinion is essential to human survival.
At age 15 my college plan was to major in computer science. This was in 1978. My father had me meet with some people who worked in the field. They all told me to find another interest, that by the time I graduated from college there would be nothing to do... all the computer programs would be written, all maintenance would be automated, etc. Lucky for me I snicker at crusty old fuckers, ie. anybody 20 years older than my current age.
Run and catch, run and catch, the lamb is caught in the blackberry patch.
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"if I were graduating today, I would get on a boat and I would get off in Shanghai."
Here's a protip for Mr. Siebel and all those people who are sending their kids to chinese lessons: the chinese aren't any more likely to give you a good job than you would a chinese getting off the boat. It's not like they're starved for people willing to work. So you'd better get off your ass and innovate over here instead of playing patent and copyright games.
If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
all the computer programs would be written
Wow, that's quite a statement. I bet they never thought there'd be a program that lets you tell the world stupid things about yourself in 140 characters or less. Sometimes old people just don't have any imagination.
"Educate the mind but never at the expense of the soul."~Blessed Basil Moreau
Of course.
Consider aviation. Aviation had an age of rapid advance from about 1910 to 1970. In those sixty years, aviation went from the Wright Brothers to the Boeing 747 and the Apollo program. Every decade completely obsoleted the aircraft of a decade earlier. Then, suddenly, it was all over. Advances since then have been minor compared to any ten-year period in those first sixty years.
... California is suffering economically. Despite the apparent opportunities of boundless land, minerals and eventually oil, the East leveraged its installed base of civilisation, knowledge and business relationships to stay dominant.
You do realize that in a listing of "World" economies California bounces between 6th and 7th. That would take three eastern states to match (NY, PA & NJ) assuming that you're talking north-eastern and not including Florida, then it's only NY & FL. And talk about leveraging power, without California there would not be a single democratic presidential candidate in recent history. Most of California's economic woes come from social programs such as one of the nation's highest minimum wages, increased health care provisions, etc. that are quite costly and have little to do with the business in the state and more with the political/social wills of the people. People from outside of California bash on it a little too much without realizing exactly what it provides this nation.
"Educate the mind but never at the expense of the soul."~Blessed Basil Moreau
Claims that IT is mature are the result of a lack of imagination.
At the turn of the 20th century there were similar claims that the automobile was mature and could not be improved any more.
What about the fact that Moore's Law has no end in sight?
What about the need to shift the focus on design instead of programming, in order to finally be able to create secure and reliable systems?
What about the prospect of autonomous robots - getting more credible every day?
What about the likelihood that CPU-based systems will see their last days when it becomes feasible to reprogram hardware architecture dynamically, in real time?
What about the emergence of massive parallelism on the desktop (and laptop), leading to real-time ray traced graphics and simulation?
What about the prospect of real-time 3D displays?
What about the prospect of intelligent machines? (In this area, there is much to fear.)
If anything, IT is dynamic, and what will come is likely to be more transforming than what has already occurred.
You'd think for a tech site, people would have a passion for tech. I guess not.
We do. We also don't proclaim every tiny change to be a revolution, unlike some people, who get overly excited. The GP is right. The iPhone has brought some nice advancements (very good touch interface, sea of apps available from a central location), but to say it's "completely changed the mobile landscape" is ludicrous. People are still using their phones in 90% the same way as they were 3 years ago.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
My employer insists on retaining an outsourcing group in India. The code we get from them is of marginal and inconsistent quality. This is probably because most of their developers are in it only for the money (and probably planned on moving on before the global economy tanked), and some sadly deluded executive over here really thought that cost-cutting constituted a business strategy.
We really do get what we pay for. But guess which groups do NOT get new feature development or requirements specification as tasks anymore?
As a younger man, I used to rant about management's willingness to accept crap code so long as it worked. These days, I just smile, knowing full well some jackass across the ocean (who probably now hates his job) is keeping me highly valued and very busy.
--- The American Way of Life is not a birthright. Hell, it's not even sustainable.
Unless and until there's a cheap mr. fusion breakthrough, demand for energy in all its forms will just continue to go up. Peaks and valleys like everything else, but general trends are growth industry from here on out. There's a back log for "all of the above" in the energy biz, from more pipelines to more exploring to more drilling to more wind power to more solar PV and thermal to more geothermal and more nukes and they are just getting going on tidal power plus all the different directions for biofuels.
You can call it a bubble, but traditionally bubbles are in reference to demands that are artificially promoted and that get people to over speculate way beyond what the real market can bear and into mass dumbness or "irrational exuberance", such as tulip mania, dotbomb webpages with zero business models to actually make any money, the never ending "house flipping" stupidity bubble combined with the wall street repackaged bad mortgages serious parasitical leech dumbass bubble they just got bailed out on, etc. (and here's my prediction, the wall street derivatives bubble will be hitting hard, not the green energy bubble)
Energy demands on the other hand are *quite real* and are supposed to keep rising through this entire century.
There are only two things that could potentially drop energy demands, mr. fusion breakthrough, and if there was such a calamity or calamities that the bulk of the planets humans kicked off. If neither of those happen, people just want more power, and more people between now and 2100, by a huge multi billion person factor, and that means demands will be steady in general terms and always on a rising slope.
If you mean an overproduction of windchargers (or solar panels, or...)...they'll still get sold at a discount and put up someplace, they just work too well to ignore. Once you start talking about half a megawaatt to two point five megawatts worth of electricity for sale per windcharger, for example, someone will want it. Just not seeing a bubble there or any time in the near or even medium future.
Who knows though, stranger things have happened, but at this time I will have to disagree with your assessment. If you want to expound on your prediction, with the reasoning behind it, I would like to read it.
Or, you know, we could build nuke plants.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
While it is nice to program systems that provide faster sorting, more efficient network traffic and better inventory analysis, I have to ask: is this what you really want to do? You could get rich with an algorithm for better commodities price prediction, but many are tearing out their hair trying to do the same thing. And the work can be tedious and ultimately almost certain to fail.
If you really must work in tech, what can you do that will be worthwhile, that will satisfy your soul?
Why not begin the singularity? Why not create the first computer that will see a path to it's own improvement and help you to build it? Generation after generation of ever smarter computers that design their own (improved) offspring...
It could make you rich, it could get you killed, but it will certainly get you into the history books.
Computers & robots working together to eliminate all the thinking and back breaking labor that humans tolerate today. Each generation smarter, stronger, better than the last. Kurzweil's singularity come to life.
On the down side you put every IT worker out of work. On the up side, no human thought or toil is ever needed again. You have made us free to watch TV and drink beer all day long.
...omphaloskepsis often...