You wrote ???We???re going to see most of traditional IT administration and support functions outsourced to third-party consultants.???
Let me apologize first for any grammatical errors as English isn???t my fisrst language.
I dare any consultants to walk-in where I work and be able to do my job without spending weeks with me to explain how things work here.
I can only assume the same can be said for many organizations.
I???m responsible for 2 separate networks and the people using it. One network is a Mac environment for Prepress and the other one is Windows for Administration.
Before, I was hired full time; they used to have 2 IT Administrators from other plans that came once in a while and not together. I???ll spare you the details; let???s just say this place was in disarray.
A full time traditional IT Administrator will always be needed for most corporation. That's my opinion.