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Cloud To Create 14 Million Jobs? Not So Much
jfruh writes "Did you hear about the study from Microsoft and IDC (PDF), declaring that adoption of cloud technologies would create 14 million jobs? Well, don't believe the hype. The study posts that, once small and medium business can use cloud products to just eliminate their IT department, they'll use those savings to hire people for their core business. It's a dubious proposition, and one that wouldn't be good news for IT workers even if things do play out that way."
Except the "cloud" is not new technology. It's just a fancy marketing word for outsourcing. Skilled IT workers will move from in-house employees to working for the cloud providers. No new jobs at all, possibly even less, if the economy of scale is factored in.
If you're using "no dedicated IT department" as a criteria for defining what constitutes a "small business", then I'm afraid your definition is next to useless.
You can check out this link to help you better understand things.
For those following along at home: the term "small business" has a more defined meaning that what's used colloquially, especially when used (disingenuously) by politicians, pundits and, on occasion, unemployed plumbers, attemping to stoke populist rage.
But it already demonstrably is progress. The thought of being able to run hundreds of virtual machines for pennies each an hour was unthinkable 10 years ago. Not to mention practically-unlimited storage for next to nothing, with edge locations around the world. The cloud has clearly changed the way many businesses and people use computers and the internet in general. I find it strange you've not noticed that.