Ask Slashdot: What Will IT Look Like In 10 Years?

An anonymous reader writes "The IT industry is a lot different than it was 10 years ago; it underwent a huge boom in terms of labor and services required to keep up with the times. Now, we are entering a consolidation phase. The cloud makes it easier for companies to host e-mail, so now instead of organizations having their own Exchange guy, they will outsource it to the cloud. Instead of having a bunch of network engineers, they will deploy wireless and no longer need cabling or current levels of network engineering services. What do you think the long-term consequences of this will be? What skills do you think will be useful in 10 years? Is IT going to put its own out of work, like we did with the post office and libraries?"

Comments

Gotta admit, Steve Jobs said it best:

[Qbertino]

Steve Jobs in his last single interview with Walt Mossberg had a very good example of what is happening with IT right now. It basically goes like this:

The very first cars were trucks. The very first chariots humans built were to hawl food from A to B. They were utility vehicles. Only later, when the vehicles of each age became a commodity, did they turn into everyday passenger vehicles that had a certain mass-availability.

The computer now is doing the same thing, moving from being a tool for workers to being a commodity for everyday use by everyone, not just experts. Experts like us don't like that very much right now, but that's the way it goes. Bizarre IBM age keyboard layouts are finally becoming a thing of the past, UIs are becoming more task focused and the need for abstraction whilst using a 'Post-PC Device' is demising quickly. Even the mouse and the file-system is quickly fading into a specialist tool.

Everyday commodity computing is basically going the way of the iPad.

IT will move to a stronger separation of end-user and expert computing. Workstation-Laptops will become more rare and expensive, purpose built for programmers and admins to use them whilst tablet and netback devices will become a dime a dozen in all kinds of varieties. People won't look for actually performance but for brands of services. Sales talks like this: 'Can my device Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and Netflix?' 'No, it can only Twitter and Facebook, you need an upgrade to Netflix with it.' will become normal at the HiFi-Store or carrier outlet.

Some vendors like Apple, Nintendo or Sony will have a strong vertical lock-in with cushy comfort solutions that require upgrading every 3rd year, others will be more open and more utility focused.

Carriers will get into bed with hardware, software and service brands more often. I expect branding and mindshare to become even more important than today in many places. To emphasize: I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft moved to the Linux kernel in a few years time and nobody would really care or even notice.

Our kind will specialize more and the rich-client web will get a new boost - as it is happening right now - because the platform diversity mess will be very much 1980ies style also like it is right now again.

All in all I'm not to scared about the way of IT, crazy DRM & patents, Human Rights and eavesdropping laws aside.
It's going to be just as interesting then as it is today.

My 2 cents.

Re:Wireless = less network engineers?

[Z00L00K]

And another factor with wireless is the limited bandwidth. When too many are using wireless at the same time in the same location things slows down considerably.

Even if you have 100Mbps but you share it with 20 people you may end up with 5Mbps. Wireless is also sensitive to electric noise, which makes things worse.

So wired networking will be the primary alternative even in the future. Especially considering that the applications we run today require more and more bandwidth.