Discussion on:

What the IT department will look like in 2015

So if all of the server goes into the cloud, where does the SysAdmin role fits in ?
it seems that there will be major lay off in the IT job role not described in the above :-/

Don't agree that there will be fewer full-time staff members, sorry. Just looking at trends the last 10 years, staff members roles have changed but we actually got more staff.
I think staff will be doing other things than they are doing now. Instead of administering Exchange, e-mail will be moved to the cloud and something else will take up my time: rolling out security updates or managing software in the cloud.
IT has become more and more critical to buisness success, and that won't change. The more businesses rely on IT, the bigger the support department will be.

That topic has been argued for many years. As a matter of fact a number of companies have realised the errors they made when they depend on consultants and when they outsource. These consultants are expensive and are never readily available when you need them. Also there is always something to manage regarding a companies IT Infrastructure. Most companies almost and always NEVER have enough IT staff to manage their network. These are the most overworked people in alot of organisations coupled with the fact that I have never trusted the cloud based on security and reliability. We need our local IT staff present at all times. That is my 2cents on this matter.

"As a matter of fact a number of companies have realised the errors they made when they depend on consultants and when they outsource."

I'm sure some companies feel that way. The question is how many compared to 10 years ago. How many will feel that way in 10 years.

I literally had a senior level person tell me, in an organization very heavily dependent on I.T., she didn't really think they needed an I.T. department. She was on a mission to get rid of it.

It's perception more than reality.

What I've learned about consumer behavior sums up why the future of technology workers is not so bright. People buy what they want, not what they neeed. You can expand the idea to business. If they're going to buy what they need, it has to be right now, immediate, gotta have it ASAP or we're done. If it's about investing in people and skills for the future, keep you resume dusted off.

the people who keep wanting to get rid of their I.T. aren't looking at the big picture as far as costs go. They see I.T. as a waste of financial resources that could be freed up for something else so they put a great big target on the dept. These are the same people who then scream bloody murder when something happens to some I.T. asset that they need to have and there's no one around to fix it. Then, after realizing that they wound up spending more money on outsourced I.T.services than they ever did when they had an I.T. department, they decide that maybe having an I.T. department is not such a bad thing after all.

It seems that more business are seeing IT as a critical factor in transforming the business and enabling processes in order to successfully compete in the marketplace.

This article makes the statement companies see IT more as a roadblock (They block more progress than they enable) rather than a partner to enable change. What I see is that a more enterprise approach is being considered when dealing with IT matters.

Too many businesses have allowed silo'd, decentralized approaches to IT that have left them with a mess; rather than having it architected at an enterprise level. I'll point to the other artile I just read, "Don't try to avoid hard work by automating" where the busines just automates anything and everything (heads down coders) without really considering the underlying processes and how it all must work together.

No, I think this article is off target. A more thoughtful, consider approach from an in-house IT organization that shares the values of that whole organization is more likely to be the wave of the future. Larger organizations are less likely to tolerate individual business units hiring IT consultants who don't share organizational values to build software that doesn't fit into an overall enterprise architecture.

But that is just my 2 cents.

That lady is an idiot I say and if she acomplish her mission she will in turn be fired as the company won't function without an IT department...if the company is of good size...not a company with 100 employees or so. However, your correct about keeping your resume dusted off.

...not agreeing with her.

but if she is successful she is a good politician. She will be ready to blame the previous IT dept for the mess.

just my 2 cents

That is 100% true...everything you say and amen. Furthermore, in my point of view Jason Hiner is all wet.

Most of the discussions revolve around one extreme or the other ..."No IT staff" or "100%" IT staff. The best solution is one that blends an in-house solution with the economies of scale savings provided by a reputable IT firm that can accomodate strategies and applications.

I believe Richard is on the correct path. While I can see the logic in Jason's 1-2-3 predictions (Consultants, PM's & Developers), survival in a continued cloudy economic environment will require organizations to be as agile as possible with both sustaining their environments (aging) & planning for the future. If this is the famed 'cloud' or other technologies de jour or simply catching up with simply testing and finding the right fit for these technologies; maintaining and keeping staff that can grasp the business objectives will be an absolute must. Outsourcing and consultancies will probably continue doing well in a general support sense, but companies by and large will be picky and retain staff to help meld and transform existing environment artifacts with newer technologies.

richard.artes...Agree with you 100%, Jason Hiner is all wet and I can say why: As a formet IT Manager he is not aware of the critical aspect of IT departments; managers just delegate and do nothing else; also most managers are not technically inclined with few exceptions. Also, being a journalst is about interviiewing and writing...not necessarily being correct about the work involved in the IT field. He talks about PCs, laptops, and tablets an those gadjets are only for the non-tech people...even the PCs! What drives the IT industry are the Enterprise Systems and those systems are not like PCs,or laptops, or tablets; they are complex systems which do not even have a monitor but instead are conected to a serial interface box so the analysts, network administrators, systems administrators, and users can access on their intelligent desktop terminal such as a windows system (PCs); however, system emulation needs to be done in order for the PC to be able to communicate with UNIX, VMS, Linux, etc Enterprise Systems. Also, everything is not about just software, hardware is the main ingredient as in order to do software the hardware is needed and people whom mantain the hardware/software (OS) on a daily basis. It gets more complicated as you start to analyse the situation. One thin I must agree on is that programmers by far have always been needed ever since the invention of the computers. However, as we develop technologically, things get more complex and automatication is the answer but that is true more in the production environment of big corporations. The bottom line is that companies are looking into ways to save money and the big one is employee benefits and hence they rather use contractors in order to avoid paying benefits to their employees. IT contracting companies in turn can manipulate their staff using them as needed and avoid paying employee benefits although some IT contracting agencies do.

Back when I was in college their was an optional computer class taught by an accountant. On day one, the professor said that we were all making a mistake by being computer science majors, because we'd all be out of jobs in 5 years. His reasoning was that before 5 years was up every program that would ever be needed will have been written as a series of components. Once that was done, he continued, anyone would be able to string together components to build applications, it would be strictly a minimum wage job, like McDonalds.

It's been a lot longer than 5 years, but it's good to see that despite attempts to make development ??? a minimum wage job, like McDonalds,??? developers are still going strong.

from the corner you are next to.....

I's always enjoyed the no more devlopers stuff, keep getting gainfully employed by the idiots who thought it was true.

Sounds like he's a graduate of Frequent Flier University. If the applications were to remain static then, maybe, programs could be strung together. But our world is to dynamic. Besides that's why there was 5 or 6 iterations of the Matrix; they lacked the language to make it all work.

Or maybe he sat on the ass of a giant:
"There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now, All that remains is more and more precise measurement." - Lord William Thomson Kelvin, 1900 AD

No wonder the physicists nowadays are all rebels, Kelvin the pied piper of physics took away all the ones who'd listen to reason

I had a sales person where I worked ask me what I was going to do because Windows 3.1 was going to make support people unnecessary. I explained that the bar is always being raised. Sure word processing, for instance, is easier now than it was 5 years ago, but people are no longer doing word processing, they're doing desktop publishing. Desktop publishing then was as hard as word processing was 5 years before. It's still the same. The things people *were* doing are easier so now they're doing more. Someone always has to be there to help them figure it out. Since I'm still employed and neded I like to think I was right no this one!

of a book I picked up published in the late 40s. The author's premise was the auto industry was saturated because almost every family in the US had a car. He predicted that by the early 50s there would be a big downturn in new auto sales so don't buy stock in the auto industry. I found the arguments compelling and they sounded logical.

It just goes to show you. A good logical argument isn't always right.

I fully disagree with this. Cloud is great for somethings like helpdesk software, but not so great for storing important company files. Like many other IT pros I do not trust the security of the cloud especially those run by the likes of Mircorsoft, Google, Apple et al. So i can see for the forseeable future that many companies will continue to maintain IT departments along with the numerous systems that they run. Any business over the size of 25 would be crazy not to.

The role described here is more of an Enterprise/Solution Architect than a Project Manager. I don't see how a Project Manager, will gather business requirements and communicate with stakeholders about the technology solutions to an Enterprise.

I believe some of Jason's points ARE valid - but there's an underlying shift towards IT being an integral part of the business decisions of the company, and not the whipping boy for users who can only type with their pinky. The technologies are aligning to work in perfect sync with a given business model, and what better person to rely on that IT to provide the knowledge of how it works. Most "IT" folks are embedded within a company, and can access most core systems for the given company - so why offshore or have someone dial-in, you have all the talent and knowledge already built-in.
As for everything being in the "cloud" - I just don't buy it - and the same goes with apps and smartphones. From a security standpoint alone, most of us are aware of the rising # of attacks on Droid-based phones, and perhaps iPhone down the road. There will need to be a littany of managment and security to "lock" these types of devices down in the corporate world, and a new segment in IT that works to manage the security of data on these devices. Could storage is "convenient" but still not the best option if you really don't want to risk critical documents being made visible "in the cloud" - there is simply no guarantee that's 100% unless you own the data - it's simple, common-sense. Good IT folks who are honest know this - foolish and easily "tricked by gadgetry" IT folks will fail.

Agreed on development - and I'd take in an additional note that "open source" projects will grow even more and push OS's like Windows aside - they will simply become unneeded (we can already use OpenOffice, share online, and soon - plug our smartphone into a skin (PC or laptop) and away we go).
The age of requiring an operating system the way we know it will change forever in a few years.

The idea that your data centre is the source of 100% security is a false one. As long as users USE data, it is at risk of exposure. Unless you are planning to run your company from a locked room with only a single dumb terminal as an access point?

I agree! Although the cloud and the like are still in need of maturing, I agree that there is this false sense of security business owners have when it comes to security and how much better it is because their servers are in their own data center or maintained by their own employees. With so much of enterprise technology connecting to the external world, it really just comes down to the people they have securing their environments. It doesn't matter if it's in a building they own or ran by people they directly employ. It's a risk/consequence decision. If your own network admin screws up a firewall configuration and leaves a vulnerable network port open, do you think he is less likely to do so because he's an employee of the company? What if he doesn't like working for that company? As IT matures into a stand-alone services industry, service providers will figure out security, dedicated service and every other hurdle that blocks it. The business economics just make too much sense...

U said it...the best security resides in PEOPLE! The user can lick information in no time even if the company has a DOD security application. There has been lots of cases users giving up information.

It still makes me much more comfortable knowing the most important data repositories are in a locked room, with only a few trusted, knowledgeable people carrying the keys. That, and careful management of internet resources, beats anything the cloud offers at this point to me, security wise. Apps like OpenOffice and GoogleApps are extremely useful, but there are just some things that are safer close to the vest.

and, the indications are that, the more things change, the more they will be the same.


One of the things that will happen, by 2015, is that, the cloud will have proven to be not secure and not dependable, and not that attractive for the majority of businesses, no matter what the size. So, the cloud might still be around by then, but will not have really made much headway, and thus, we'll be left with pretty much the same IT world we have today.

Then, the developer roles will remain pretty much what they are today, except, more people will migrate their skills from other functions to becoming developers. Developers are and will be the role which will encompass most previous development functions, and will include database programming and web development and even desktop development. The lower IT management functions will virtually disappear and project managers will be just developers with more years of experience.

The hardware and software will, of course, improve, but, the basic form functions will be pretty much what are being defined today, with more mobile devices, which, as the author above mentioned, will have gained the power of fully featured PCs. The desktops and laptops will still be around, and so will be the mainframe and super-computers. The OSes will be better and the hardware will still be trying to become less expensive and more attractive, while becoming a lot faster and with more features.

So, basically, not much will have changed.

Now, by 2020, that could be a whole different redefinition of what computer and software become. By that time, mobile devices will be "wearable" and hardly noticeable. The desktops will have merged into our TVs, and the laptops will have become what tablets were moving towards, but they will be much thinner, much lighter, fully featured, with full OSes and full hardware functions, with no spinning hard-drives but with terabytes of storage and interactivity capabilities that will closely resemble HAL. Programming or development will be as easy as telling your computer what your idea is, and then interactively working with the computer to progressively refine that idea into a fully functioning package, all within a matter of hours or a day.

And there will be no software patents to worry about to protect your work.

Sad but true, American management still believes that the IT solution to the internal department is to outsource everything to India, cheaper wages and no bennies. The IT department of the future is here now, only not "here" but over "there" half a world away, desks staffed by eager young graduates who think copy/paste is neat and answer phones following a script. Copy-paste comment is true by the way, as Air Canada moved a critical application to Cairo and there, IBMers had to train eager young faces how to FIRST use copy and paste. Consultants fill this technical void to a degree, we carry no benefits but carry high hourly cost. But we can be hired and fired easily or kept on a tight hourly leash. Still, WE - the technical community in general - have to CONTINUALLY FIGHT OUTSOURCING. Period. It has destroyed our career field.

In many ways, all this hype about "cloud" is just another method of out-sourcing.
To me it resembles more of a return to the old ways, prior to the introduction of
"personal computers", when most companies were at the mercy of a few "big iron" vendors, and we rented computer time, or paid huge monthly access fees,
connected to the mainframe via 120 baud modems and dumb terminals.
When the PC was introduced, it was a break from being tied down to whatever
the service provider offered. We had our own storage media on our own systems. Why do so many appear eager to relinquish that freedom for the sake
of a fragment of "convenience"? How many more jobs in all fields are we going
to outsource before we're all in line at the unemployment office?
Oh, and in regards to changing to app development, how many of those jobs
have ALREADY been outsourced? Any other ideas for career moves?

What do you think the cloud is? We've gone from centralized computer resources to decentralized, a server for every application, to centralized again. Sounds like you had a bad experience years ago and haven't let go of it yet.

it was what it was. In my humble opinion, we've already been down
that road, no need to re-trace those steps.

Just take your data and MOVE IT over there to another country to their data center and their servers. NOTHING IS STORED IN, REPEAT, IN THE CLOUD. The cloud is using the internet as an immensely LONG, very insecure cable to transact data. Then American firms can shut down the very expensive data center, fire staff, and turn it into a cafeteria or meeting room. Outsourcing by any other name. OH and do not get me started in security issues!!! Anybody aware that the Pacific Data Cables have been cut, twice????

You must be an old pro...like myself!

I agree to the fact that there is going to be huge transformation in IT pros roles and expectation. They are going to move towards consulting role than a full time IT managed service role. But at the same time, we will still require to have proactive adminstration and management for both infra and application area. The demand part of business IT will remain within, may be the supply part will be more outsourced to person or organisation.

Centalised, because it wasn't...

What the IT deaprtment will look like in 2019
De-centralised because it wasn't.....

What the IT deaprtment will look like in 2021
Centralised because it wasn't.....

I may be wrong, but there's some sort of pattern here.

That's the way it's gone in all the years I've been in IT. I'd love to have all the money some companies have spent switching back and forth between the lastest buzz-words.

As a 30 year veteran in this field, I can say it has flip-flopped more than once. You can pay me as an employee, or pay me more as a consultant. Pick your poison, Mr./Ms. Michael-Porter-in-a-box MBA. The cloud, in the past, was just mainframe time over a leased line. Mr./Ms. MBA will figure out that their data is no longer under their control, usually after a disaster happens. One early cloud company already went under, leaving the client without so much as an address to send the VPN router back to. Since I was only there as a "network consultant" I was not consulted on the choice of product. I was just there to hook it all up and make sure it worked. Who knows where their data went.

An interesting prognostication. There will always be a need for people to work on the physical layer, though. It may be rolled into a Facilities or Maintenance group out of IT, but someone will need to be able to run cable, connect wireless access points, install fiber, replace NICs, etc. Old cable dogs don't die, they just keep punching away.

There are certain items in the article that can potentially come true, while others are just day-dream wishes. Looking back from my last 20+ years in technology and business management, I noticed most predictions are just that - predictions. Sorry, but the market cannot be controlled nor be predicted as a number of "experts" may want you to think. Otherwise we would all go into the stock brokerage business. However, there are some historical common denominators that should not change: 1) The focus of technology (hardware, software, and support-services) should directly impact and be accountable for the end products or services. 2) Well run businesses are sensitive to the bottom line and usually are not the bleeding edge adopters. It takes time and efforts (marketing, etc.) for the right technology/services to reach their respective audience. 3) The end goal (for business working with technology) is to connect customers/clients directly with the products/services in the most customer-friendly way possible without breaking the bank - all the "stuff" in between are secondary. No customers/clients => no sales/revenue => no company => no IT (period). With that said, all the "stuff" mentioned in the article can change on a dime based on market forces.

. . . like the death of the mainframe. Mainframes are still alive and still doing the heavy lifting.

The frustrating thing is that it is the worst of them that are still thriving -- the ones with the worst hardware, the worst (both user-hostile and software developer hostile) operating systems. Why? They have always had the unreasoning support of the B-school bozos, who buy this garbage using other people's money at other people's risk for the most part.

Jason, I dont know if you wrote this article primarily to spark controversy and banter but as as a former IT manager in health care, you know how demanding health care staff can be. I find your comment "It???s nothing personal against geeks, it???s just that IT pros are expensive and when IT departments get too big and centralized they tend to become experts at saying, ???No.??? They block more progress than they enable. " offensive since the team I work on bends over backward to make whatever device or system is thrown at us work no matter the difficulty. You sound more like an upset end user than someone that's served in IT.

I can't imagine being let go so our company can pay 3 times more for a consultant that isnt going to know the application of a system or provide the personalized service like we do. Its exactly why we are very carefultry when hiring consultants.

As far as the cloud goes, no big company is going to care as much about our data as the owner will. Sony has already changed their Terms of Service to limit liability if/when their data gets hacked again. Again, I can't imagine any company wanting to pay more to entrust their data and services to big companies that won't care as much as we do to protect and care for them.

Since I'm a Network Manager and not a business man, maybe I'm just naive but a lot of this is just common sense to me.

My technical writing contracts often have me fixing things for companies that paid heavily—sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars—for failing to keep documentation current with processes and products. In a typical case, they had a technical writer at some point, but the person was untrained in modern technical communications and failed to create and maintain a cohesive body of documentation. Not seeing the value in the resulting work, they let the "technical writer" go. In other cases, they'd been lucky enough to find a skilled, professional technical writer or two, but laid them off when the documentation was "finished."

A good technical writer—trained in a reputable technical communications certificate or degree program—is a critical ongoing resource for any technical company. A good tech writer not only researches, writes, edits, and formats documents—but often can create illustrations and diagrams, author audio-video content, and is at home in HTML5 and other presentation technologies. A good technical writer also acts as a librarian—maintaining document repositories and connecting managers, developers, and engineers to information.

For internal stakeholders to all be on the same page, there must be pages to be on—and those pages must contain clear, organized, concise documentation. I hope that, by 2015, more IT departments recognize this.