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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."
The revolution of automotive transport put a lot of horse dung collectors out of work too. Society should advance. Period. That that means some jobs are erased is a good thing. Whenever jobs are erased, it represents a freeing of human minds to focus on even more productive tasks.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
The IT monkeys will still be around and needed to keep your PC running, it's the actual skilled IT that will be losing work.
When are we going to accept that technology SHOULD be used to eliminate jobs and create more free time for more people? We need a SOCIAL change, urgently. Work shouldn't always be about moving wealth upwards while we scramble around in a "Hunger Games"-type society.
Isn't the point of the cloud to move all these services to central locations where they are managed by fewer people?
Once we automate the factories, we will hire more managers and executives.
Once we outsource the call centers we will hire more technicians.
Once we use all the oil we will invent something else.
I have prime swampland for sale in the Sahara too.
We have to get use to the fact that not all people will be producers in our society and that percentage of non producers will continue to increase. Does that mean that they have no right to a decent life? This is the future we wanted, where things are becoming more automated and peoples lives become easier. Is it really making anything easier. I would say no until we have a sea change in our socioeconomic views.
Silence is a state of mime.
Why wouldn't the actual skilled IT people go work for the cloud service providers, again?
I'd much rather work for Google in one of their data centers than for a company being the "windows is broke, tell the customer to reboot," guy.
Because those jobs will be concentrated in fewer service provider centers, requiring fewer people to manage them.
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.
Or they'll just put it towards profits and big bonuses for the CEO and senior staff, creating no jobs at all.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
and it leads to increased efficiency. Those people can on to fulfill other functions. This is mainly the reason we're not all farmers anymore like in the stone age.
But they'll be in China and India.
Still need security, Still need a networking staff, what you wont need is the DBAs, the active directory guys, but networking, hardware etc... they will be needed. If the internet doesn't work your cloud isn't going to do you much good.
Because those jobs will be concentrated in fewer service provider centers, requiring fewer people to manage them.
Isn't that what progress is supposed to be about: accomplishing the same tasks with less labor?
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
Not really. If there were no benefits to moving to the cloud, because the same resources were needed, then these cloud service providers couldn't lower costs much.
The end result will be less IT employed and worse SLAs for companies. Instead of a single outage affecting one company, it will affect many.
Why wouldn't the actual skilled IT people go work for the cloud service providers, again?
You can't insert a profitable intermediary in between the same IT people and the old company without cutting jobs somehow. Supposedly centralization will result in fewer people doing more work, so less employees allow a layer of profitable intermediaries.
So you'll have 10 former IT guys and 3 jobs. The other 7, well there's always soylent green. Oh well.
The other problem is just being realistic, the 10 former IT guys will be in the US and the 3 new jobs will be in India. So its more like all 10 will go soylent green.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
If the industry shifts and you no longer need as many IT staff, so be it. Throughout history, advances in technology have wiped out entire professions - when was the last time you met a fletcher, tanner or a pencil and paper draughtsman? This would be no different. Technology progress inevitably makes some people's professions redundant, but they also open new doors. It is for those at risk of obsolescence to spot the trend and make the transition to one of those shiny new doors before their existing one slams shut in their face.
I say bring it on.
I've very recently been doing some digging into "the cloud" as requested by my superiors. All marketing/tech literature that I find from Microsoft is aimed towards entities that cannot afford proper admins to run their infrastructure or entities that regularly encounter huge peak demand. It also gives the entity the flexibility to suddenly scale up if they need more resources for a corner case, without the large capital investment required for in-house infrastructure.
Everything that I was read, listened to, or watched from MS has been quite level-headed in which cases to use the cloud.
I haven't had time to RTFA as the end of the day nears and I'm working on something else, but I find it strange for MS to do an about-face and claim cloud as an actual replacement for a proper in-house IT.
Because those jobs will be concentrated in fewer service provider centers, requiring fewer people to manage them.
Isn't that what progress is supposed to be about: accomplishing the same tasks with less labor?
I view your assumption that the cloud would be progress with amusement. I'm making popcorn.
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
The other problem is just being realistic, the 10 former IT guys will be in the US and the 3 new jobs will be in India. So its more like all 10 will go soylent green.
I think you forgot to include that one or two of them will come back to the company as contractors when the cloud doesn't prove to be as amazing as first described in the sales pitch. Once the bugs start comng out and problems arise, a few of them will be hired back (probably at much higher rates than they originally worked) to solve the issues that are coming up so that the company can continue to operate "business as usual".
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
...you might as well walk away. What follows is always bullshit.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Labor-saving technologies are only viable in the market if they ultimately eliminate more human labor than they create. New technologies, apart from entertainment applications, *always* eliminate jobs in the long run. Either that or they don't get adopted.
Eliminating jobs is their primary purpose. Promising that they will create jobs is a direct lie intended to win the hearts and minds of the very people who will be put out of work.
Eliminating jobs is a *good* purpose. If the machines do our work for us, then we don't have to. Of course, there are economic consequences, especial since traditional capitalistic values don't work well in an environment with a very high percentage of automated labor. However, these are secondary concerns to the advancement of humanity.
No, they won't.
You'll still need that skilled person around, and in fact, they'll have to possess more skills than the "skilled" person they'll be hired to replace (6 months after the person they're replacing was terminated).
Why?
Because this person will have to deal with all the bullshit and problems that comes with pushing things to the Cloud. Those problems may be fewer, but they will be significantly more complex not only due to the nature of the networking involved and the different architecture, but also due to the inability to actually get in there and fix the core problem. Surprisingly, not many "Senior Windows Administrators" are even able to understand virtualization, let alone the Cloud.
Augmenting SMB networks with Cloud services for resilience and redundancy? Absolutely! But replacing them outright is a good way for a company to deep-six itself. Why Microsoft would sell their clients down the river to this degree is beyond me...
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Yes, unfortunately as time goes on we're going to have more and more people permanently out of work. It's a hurdle that we're going to have to get over as humans, and it will be a very, very high hurdle.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)