Nicholas Carr, author of The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google, maintains that in 10 to 20 years, the traditional IT department will be a thing of the past. According to Carr, “The idea that every company needs its own IT department is dying.”

He makes this assertion based on his belief that

  • Corporate IT departments will no longer be constrained by what they can buy and install locally. He refers to this as “utility computing.” Companies will be able to tap into a sophisticated infrastructure without having to buy it themselves.
  • Business units will be able to control the processing of information directly, without the need for legions of technical people.
  • Software-as-a-service is going to be a big growth area.
  • There will be automation of a lot of IT processes that used to require a lot of manual labor.

Click here to read an interesting interview with Carr about his new book.