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IT Desktop Support To Be Wiped Out Thanks To Cloud Computing
An anonymous reader writes "Tech industry experts are saying that desktop support jobs will be declining sharply thanks to cloud computing. Why is this happening? A large majority of companies and government agencies will rely on the cloud for more than half of their IT services by 2020, according to Gartner's 2011 CIO Agenda Survey."
The naivety into a fud survey disturbs me, not to mention the whole company dependence issue which could lead into a business trap backlash if one fails.
Cloud computing isn't going to kill anything.
There's no article here. It's just a bunch of marketing crap.
You always see this kind of language when disruptive change occurs (e.g. production lines Vs. hand built, car Vs. carriage, electricity Vs. coal, etc) but all that really happens is the jobs shift from one area to another, and that people need to adapt or die.
Desktop Support MIGHT decline, but we will see growth in service level jobs at third parties. Instead of having in-house IT staff teach people how to use e-mail, you'll have someone across the country or globe do the same job.
I guess one might argue that you can shift the jobs abroad, but as we've seen in the last few years such out-sourcing is not cost effective in the long term (or at least with skilled jobs it isn't).
Sounds like wishful thinking to me. I don't believe in the cloud, and I think many will follow when the first mayor cloud-outage or data breach has occurred. Also, staying connected to the cloud is a challenge itself, which will still require a lot of jobs. We recently had a three day down-time in our organisation, which effectively made them three lost days. Connection issues to the internet are a daily thing, but since we don't use the cloud that only delays my Slashdot posts...
This survey is done by Gartner, and thats all you really need to know. Basically its a clever ad for Gartners consulting services "cleverly" disguised as a survey to try to give it some sort of credibility.
This isnt the first time they have done this, this wont be the last. I remember back in 2003 they basically came out with a survey that stated something along the lines of "by 2010 around 50% of all US IT jobs will be offshored...oh and apropos of nothing, we just HAPPEN to have an offshore IT consulting service. What a coincidence! Contact us now for a no-fee consultation, and remember, 50% of all jobs, you dont want to be left behind, call today!"
However their predictions werent even CLOSE to being true, I would be surprised if 10% of all IT jobs are now done offshore, still a large % to be sure, but nowhere near what Gartner was predicting. Of course, Gartner doesnt have a vested interest in being truthful, they have a vested interest in creating alarmist headlines to try to drum up business for their shitty consulting arm.
Monstar L
I don't really like "cloud" as a solution for this, but I think desktop support is a waste of resources. Be it thin clients, remote administration, Linux on desktop or whatever, but anything that cuts down desktop support is a good thing in my book.
And if you are worried about lost jobs, well, breaking windows is also a job, but it does no good. These people would be more beneficial to society doing something else.
--Coder
Who validates such bullcrap to be published on slashdot ?
There is not even a single argument or anything, just FUD and buzzword.
I worked in desktop support for a number of different companies. (I've also done software testing, and programming.) Currently, I do end user support for a vertical software package.
Anyway, in ten years across four different firms supporting everything from commodity hardware to custom software, one thing has remained constant. Most support calls aren't for the sort of configuration and installation issues that the cloud solves. Rather, most support calls are for users that are unable (or unwilling) to read the manual or to show the user how to do things that are either too basic or too complicated to have been included in the manual.
Moving to the cloud isn't going to magically make a user understand the difference between a short cut and a file. Nor is it going to explain to them what those numbers in that report that hits that one table in the database means.
If you know anything, you know that's nonsense. For one thing, most companies require services not offered by the cloud. Beyond that, never under estimate the user's ability to not be able to find the O.N. button or otherwise screw up a foolproof system.
The IT situation is going to change. It always does. But abstracting it all to the cloud isn't possible unless you have a custom database designed for the amazon cloud or something and even then you've got the whole IT department that manages that.
Beyond that you have local files. Telling businesses that they can't get access to anything if the internet drops isn't going to work.
There are just so many serious fatal problems with this idea.
This funny little video touches on a few:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4EbCkotKPU
Yes yes... evil M$... insert hiss and boo... but we're talking about end user business software. Have fun clawing Excel out of their cold dead hands.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
"Desktop support" isn't really about desktops. DUH. It's about users, who won't be going anywhere, and will continue to need to have their hands held for even the most trivial of things.
Maybe "the cloud" will make Gartner go away. The Cloud can do anything right?
Standard HTML works. In this case, you're looking for text .
Why Slashdot hasn't migrated to a modern standard such as BBCode is beyond me, but oh well. It is what it is.
Even as more apps are becoming web based, in the short to medium term users will still be accessing them using the same desktops they always have and will still need support for them.
Perhaps long term, users can move to simpler dumb terminals that have less to go wrong and thus require less support. But that's less, not none... Things can still go wrong, one of the primary functions of desktop support is unjamming printers and replacing toner which despite promises of the paperless office won't be going away any time soon.
There will also be a need to debug network level issues, as a dumb terminal is useless without its network...
So sure, desktop support will be reduced but not "wiped out"...
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Perhaps the article is right that more than half of IT is going into a cloud. That means that almost half will still be in-house, and it is usually that half which requires the IT support staff. It is local, customized applications that need attention. Sure, a word processor can be ran anywhere. But your CRM system will not be so easy to move into the cloud, Regardless of what cloud vendors are trying to tell you.
The IT staff is here to stay.
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
There's an awful lot of scepticism on slashdot about the cloud, which is healthy in a way, but I think in general people are hugely underestimating the impact that cloud computing is going to have on IT deployment. It is going to affect us all; software as a service holds huge challenges for the free software movement, some skillsets such as traditional IT support are not going to be as useful, and the way we write software is going to change further.
I'm no cloud zealot, I've just been reading about it a lot and talking to Cloud providers (some large, some medium-sized) and academic experts. I've tried to answer the many points that have been brought up here:
-- "We've been down this road before."
We have, but things *are* different now. Firstly, we have sophisticated and mature virtualisation technologies that allow efficient coresidency and management of VMs. Costs per CPU hour have dropped. Internet access is incredibly pervasive. The "post-PC" era of tablets and smart phones are producing a huge demand for cloud-based storage and services. Does this mean cloud will automatically be successful? No. Does it mean that comparisons with previous era's are not necessarily correct? Yes. If you want another example, tablets didn't 'work' in the past... but now they do.
-- Moving to the cloud won't change anything.
Yes, and no. We will still need IT to manage the cloud services, and engineer bespoke cloud products. Users will still require support. But you're no longer talking about rolling out O/S updates across your company, or installing the latest version of Word. No more capital investment in some server hardware, no more long-term planning of purchases of those servers. If a thin client is broken, you just replace it, and maintaining those thin clients is a hell of a lot easier if they're dumb.
-- Bespoke solution X won't work on the cloud.
No, it won't. But your Exchange server certainly can be moved to the cloud quite easily. In fact, many companies start their move to the cloud with Exchange, and then migrate to live apps... the point is, that you don't have to move *everything* to the cloud in order to make savings and find other benefits.
My advice is, go learn about cloud computing, start looking at the architectures that cloud applications use. Read up on Amazon Web Services and try it out. Take a look at Google App Engine. Read a few books looking at the business case for the cloud before you dismiss it.
RS
A lot of today's internal server support jobs will go away. But there will still be network infrastructure to support (somebody has to manage the switches, firewalls, and access points), there's still going to be desktop support (PEBKAC errors, hardware, and malware), and there will likely be at least some local resources that need to be managed. We won't have a lot of people managing Exchange servers or Active Directory anymore. Or actually we still will - they'll just be working for the cloud providers instead of the client company.
Besides that, this will open up opportunities for outsource support firms (disclaimer: I own a small one). Companies will still need specialized support resources on occasion, just likely not enough to employ a lot of them as staff. They will get that expertise as-needed to supplement what they have in-house.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
Bless my users and their black little hearts, desktop support is highly unlikely to ever vanish. Certainly change, certainly remote desktop support (ie gotoassist) will increase, however there will still (likely) be situations where an actual person is going to be needed to go directly to a person and help.
With the increase in mobile computing and potential to see the desktop PC effectively vanish in 20 years (or less!), you will still have people who not only shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a means of communication more complex than smoke signals, and you will still need someone at the ready with a fire extinguisher. The current generation of tech savvy middle school age children will, of course, be part of that next generation of mobile users. However, problems happen. Mobile users will, most likely, still have an office which needs to be set up, which needs to have a person come and assist in problems. They will still need face to face time to help sort out issues, train in the use of a device, and possibly troubleshoot. I have many users who experience abject terror at the prospect of setting up even the most simple minded of USB printers, activating a phone, or even plugging in speakers! Odds are such phobia won't just up and vanish.
There is also a more human element that many people desire when dealing with technical issues. Perhaps we'll see more situations like Apple's genius bar, or *shudder* Geek Squad, taking shape in the business of support. But who knows? At this point, pundits shouldn't attempt to speculate about the IT industry in 2 years, let alone 8 or 20.
"nobody seems to remember we have been down this road before"
Yes. When I talk to a new class, I often find it useful to draw a spiral showing the development of IT - emphasizing "we have been here before":
Obviously, each iteration is slightly different than the one before, and there are big overlaps. Still, a spiral going around 3 times captures the spirit of computing history rather nicely. Note also - as so often, the cycle length of 20 years is pretty close to a human generation. Just like each generation thinks it invented sex, each generation thinks it has completely revolutionized computing.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
And to fix the final problem: get rid of the dumb user. And then nobody will complain about faulty hardware and software. We're heading in that direction anyway. How many researcher jobs have been lost to the Google search box?
And so long as a computer power supply can fail, a monitor can go bad, or a cable can become disconnected, you will need on-site support.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
Great warrior...hrmph! Wars not make one great.
We are trying out the Chrome Books here and That is the issue we are running into. There is a LOT more Offline instances than anyone wants to admit.
We are finding an Ubuntu laptop with Libre Office with thunderbird and dropbox is working far better. It works all the time, and we found that a chromebook uses it nicely and the WWAN cards works well with linux.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
...and in other news, un-employment in India instantly rises 120%....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
This is so wrong. By common sense you'd think it would be right, but that's not true.
I am seeing quite a number of students that want everything and want it NOW and they don't have any concept of what is under the hood of their computers. The percentage of the younger folks that can fix their computers is the exact same percentage of the older folks that can fix their computers.
We just moved from "the cloud" exchange to local hosted exchange. This wasn't done on account of "we just felt like it" in fact central IT was very much against the idea. It was done on account of the epic amount of problems we were having. It didn't save on support, it took more support. We had to pay them for support AND have all kinds of on campus support for all the end user problems. Support slowed to a crawl trying to get shit fixed with all the finger pointing.
"The cloud" really just means "outsourcing" and as ever with that, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't and it often depends on your size. If you are a 5 man small business, well than ya you have to outsource exchange, too expensive to have it internally. If you have 10,000 people, then it probably doesn't make sense.