The global future of IT
Chuck Hollis, Vice President of Technology Alliances at EMC, has laid out his vision of the future of IT and what
that means for IT professionals. His perspective is positive but he highlights
that today’s technologists will need to adapt to a world where their focus is
more on information than technology and how to integrate internal services with
those of external suppliers. The implication is that technology will be
increasingly encapsulated into services sparing everyone apart from the creators
the need to get their hands technologically dirty.
I go along
with this. But I would also throw into the mix globalisation. It will mean that
many infrastructure roles will migrate to so called low cost countries. Only
those roles that are user-touching are likely to remain local. And those that
remain local will need to be skilled in working with distributed teams made up
of multiple cultures.
However, the good
news for those concerned about their livelihood drifting to foreign lands is
that India and China (and Brazil and Russia) are growing economically more
powerful. They will cease to be low cost and are likely to see western countries
as useful from both from a holiday destination perspective and from an
investment perspective. Buying an ailing bank or picking up some cheap property
will become more the norm.
Ultimately their economies will be such that IT
services will be seen as a second class occupation and so will turn to
those economically weak western countries to seek out cheap IT talent. What goes
around comes around. Those that prepare for this future will feel they have the
most control over their professional destinies.