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Is IT becoming extinct?

blogs.zdnet.com — Since the days of punch cards, IT has believed itself to be guardian of precious computing resources against attacks from non-technical barbarians known as “users.” This arrogant attitude reflects inability to adapt to present-day realities. Such attitudes, combined with recent technological and social changes, are pushing IT to extinction

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  • dudettea, on 03/24/2008, -19/+3To answer the question poised in your title: Yes, IT is becoming extinct, mainly as a result of all the technologically-retarded old people dying off.
    • Lubinski, on 03/24/2008, -1/+19True that people growing up now are more "tech savy." But I read an article once that says all these "tech savy" people know nothing about supporting systems. Which is true. You can be "tech savvy" and not know a thing about supporting systems infrastructure.
    • rcarroll215, on 03/24/2008, -0/+11Trust me, the younger, more tech savvy "know enough to be dangerous" people are more of a threat to information systems than the older clueless people could ever be. As long as you have that one guy who keeps trying to chew up the company's bandwidth with internet radio or an executive who wants to install video poker on his corporate laptop, we'll all still have jobs.
      • Lubinski, on 03/24/2008, -0/+1The same statement can go with Microsoft also. As long as they stay around we will all have plenty of jobs.
        (BTW im not a M$ hater)
    • MattBD, on 03/24/2008, -0/+2Plenty of people my age (29) or younger are perfectly capable of using computers but aren't necessarily very knowledgeable about them. A lot of them still think the Internet is the big blue icon on the desktop and it never occurs to them to use a different browser.
      • Lubinski, on 03/24/2008, -0/+1RAWR the broswer war crawls its way in... ;D
  • colonelpanic, on 03/24/2008, -7/+14It better not be, or my future career is proper *****.
    • Memitim, on 03/24/2008, -1/+3If you were planning on going into IT, your future career was already *****. ;) Just kidding, somewhat. The article does raise a good point that IT has completely changed, so now it is becoming all about your people skills. Which is a real bitch for us old-schoolers who got into IT because we are into working on technology, not people, but that's just how it goes.
    • CaptainLando, on 03/24/2008, -0/+2"so now it is becoming all about your people skills."

      You almost make an excellent point. I'm going to revise it. I am very active in the area of getting high schoolers and college students prepared for computing-related industry jobs (I am a college student myself). I have spoken to many people in industry (Google, Yahoo, IBM, Cisco, etc.) and their answers are all the same. I think Rick Rashid, Senior VP of Research and Development at Microsoft, says it best. Recently he explained that though social skills are necessary for creating synergy in a team, it is still crucial that people have proper tech skills.
      So to revise, it is not all about social skills, it is primarily about tech skills and social skills are essential, as well.
  • Wootstapler, on 03/24/2008, -1/+10This article doesn't answer much just by asking itself more questions...
  • Lubinski, on 03/24/2008, -1/+39"putting powerful tools directly into the hands of non-technical workers"

    Anyone see a problem here?
    • doctordbx, on 03/24/2008, -2/+2No. It means tools such as reporting systems and datamining tools.
      A few years ago I was involved in a project that took report writing out of the hands of IT, and utilising a couple of off the shelf tools such as Crystal Reports and SPSS combined with some training, we had the Marketing People writing their own reports and creating more meaningful reports much more rapidly than IT ever possibly could.
      IT has its place, but it should also realise that it is there purpose to serve a business, not drive it. Another bugbear I have.
      • chrispix, on 03/24/2008, -0/+2I guess where our employees work they don't have to be smart, we have several tools available for users to write their own reports. The issue is A) They don't wan't to, B) They don't understand how.
        If A was forced, and they had to write their own, I don't think 95% or more of the employees could understand a rational database design. We had one department creating queries linking tables, looked all fine and dandy, until you saw that they were not utilizing the correct type of joins, and were joining all rows from each table effectively creating more records than necessary (or correct) in their report.
        • doctordbx, on 03/24/2008, -0/+1If you can teach it to people in semester 1 of an IT degree when they first encounter SQL, you can teach it to people who have marketing degrees. We're not in the business of hiring idiots.
  • chicken101, on 03/24/2008, -10/+3Steven King's IT? No it will be back...oh wait nevermind.
  • JasonCox, on 03/24/2008, -2/+30We're not going anywhere. I just had a user who said her Internet wasn't working... plugged the Cat5 into the laptop and like magic the tubes started flowing!
    • KaiSe7eN, on 03/24/2008, -1/+2lol, nice =)
    • syriusblack, on 03/24/2008, -0/+8got an email yesterday from someone.
      """Subject: My email isn't working. Could you fix it?"""

      ..................FAIL!.....
    • Changa, on 03/24/2008, -0/+1Do you have an internet cable for my laptop?
    • Lubinski, on 03/24/2008, -0/+1The dumptrucks filled up the tubes once you plugged it in eh?
  • friedkat, on 03/24/2008, -6/+7As long as our Exchange server keeps falling over I think their job is safe!
    • Memitim, on 03/24/2008, -1/+3Or if your IT department can't maintain a reliable email service then the company will just externalize their email operations completely. The only IT departments that are safe are the ones that run lean, run reliably, and focus on the business rather than the tools.
  • ExSlashdotter, on 03/24/2008, -2/+46'Technologically-retarded people dying off'?

    Hardly. Ever seen the lines forming behind the Geek Squad counter these days? As a Network Admin, I can tell you we're nowhere *near* the point where people can take care of their own stuff. Shoot, many users are totally flustered having to change their password every 60 days, much less configuring a Pix or an Exchange server.

    Show me a decent sized company that can live without a basic helpdesk. I dare you. Once you find one of those, then talk to me about that company not needing higher-level IT staff.

    Hey, average joe user that can barely enter your timesheet! Would you mind load-balancing these SQL servers for me? That'd be awesome, thanks.
    • vibrokatana, on 03/24/2008, -0/+8Not to mention the risk to security with out a standardized, well thought out policy. You will have idiots placing everything on the web and surprised when it gets wiped and they don't know what a backup is when they call for help.
    • ExSlashdotter, on 03/24/2008, -0/+9You know what else I'm sick of? Im guessing most of the people digging this story are the people that I cant stand dealing with all day. The guys that think they're network engineers just cause they bought a Linksys router at Best Buy. The guys that think they're computer ninjas just because they installed the latest version of Vista, and they think we're totally full of crap.

      But ask them how a friggin windows domain works. They have no idea. Ask them what Active Directory *is*. They won't have heard of it.
      • doctechnical, on 03/24/2008, -0/+4Can your users un-jam their printer, or change the toner/ink cartridges without your help? Do they know that the actual PC case isn't "the hard drive"? Do they know the difference between a spread sheet and a word processor? Do they have some vague idea of what you mean when you say "put it on your server share"?
        Set the wayback machine to the late 80s. Welcome to my nightmare. "My computer doesn't work, there's nothing on the screen". "Did you turn the monitor on yet?" "Oh."
        Users are a hell of a lot more savvy than they used to be, and for that I'm thankful.
        • chrispix, on 03/24/2008, -0/+2I don't know about that, before they just did not know how to turn on the computer, now there is way more for them to ask questions about / screw up.
      • ExSlashdotter, on 03/24/2008, -0/+3You point out that most users users don't even know how to *USE* their server share. And you're right. What I'm saying goes way beyond that. Whats the chances those users could SET UP auto-mounting SMB shares without the existence of IT?

        The peopl saying IT is obsolete are the ones who think they know everything, but have *zero* understanding of how the backend of a business actually functions. Thats like sailors saying 'who needs the engine room? Its totally irrelevant to what we do on the deck."
  • DLuckyE, on 03/24/2008, -9/+0If IT becomes extinct, who's gonna make the new software?
    • spaceant, on 03/24/2008, -2/+5India.
      • laughandsing, on 03/24/2008, -1/+1soooooooooooo. not funny. i hope things dont come down to that..
    • santaliqueur, on 03/24/2008, -1/+4Certainly not IT people. who don't write software to begin with.
    • KaiSe7eN, on 03/24/2008, -1/+3Hannah Montana
  • dattaway, on 03/24/2008, -4/+2I blame the integrated circuit. Relays, tubes, core memory, and punch cards were job security.
    Bring back the good old days.
  • ChaosProfessor, on 03/24/2008, -6/+9nothing like a good ID10T Error
    we have a new one though

    I will Say it was a PICNIC

    Problem
    In
    Chair
    Not
    In
    Computer
    • Murdats, on 03/24/2008, -0/+3pfft, its PEBCAK
      Problem Exists Between Chair And Keyboard.
  • Asrrin29, on 03/24/2008, -1/+6As long as users are idiots, IT will always have a place. SaS and web2.0 can't do ***** if the user doesn't know how to turn on the computer. Also, hardware maintenance is part of IT's job, and that will never go away.
  • aceiii222, on 03/24/2008, -0/+8Obviously this person is not in the IT field. I work with Id10T's all day long and this nation is still a long way from having IT becoming extinct. It could happen one day...but that day is still a long way off.
  • jayscot, on 03/24/2008, -0/+6Just tell the little lady at the desk to install the network printer herself then.
  • Wingdom, on 03/24/2008, -0/+13knowing the people I know, even my age, IT will NEVER become extinct.
  • skroll, on 03/24/2008, -5/+2The only people who will go extinct are those who fetched a 2 year associates degree or who barely skated by with a bachelors. The low-end, help desk IT positions will dwindle away. However, those in computer science with a hardcore knowledge of math who can design and implement new ideas and ways of doing things will never be out of a job.

    The guy who can develop software for embedded systems efficiently will be much more valuable then the Windows administrator with a CIT degree.
    • syriusblack, on 03/24/2008, -1/+9sounds like someone is worried his high priced education with be worthless when the company hires that nerd that was programming at 12 years old.

      • bogatash, on 03/24/2008, -0/+2Sounds like that nerd that was programming at 12 years old would be a perfect fit for being a …. Programmer/Developer.
    • bogatash, on 03/24/2008, -0/+3Can you give me two reasons that a IT Admin needs to have a hardcore knowledge on math?
    • Genady, on 03/24/2008, -0/+3Huh... I've got a 2 year degree and have been a SysAdmin and Developer for over 12 years now. Yeah... I'm not so worried.

      IT is deeply hurting for people who can bring an operations mentality to the field. CompSci skills are becoming less important, but logistics and more traditional engineering practices.... those are valuable.
      • Lubinski, on 03/24/2008, -0/+1Degrees = capacity to learn. Very little carries over to the job world.
  • fenris6644, on 03/24/2008, -2/+8Buried for silly, sensational headline.
  • Samurai77, on 03/24/2008, -0/+8As an IT guy myself, I think this guy is on crack. What, are you going out hire the Geek squad to setup your enterprise server farm?!?!? or get the CEO who is comfortable with tech to do it? Ya right!
  • madwickedstiner, on 03/24/2008, -0/+8Not even close... As long as this person exists:
    Stupid user: "Hey, IT, help! My monitor isn't on"
    IT guy: "Have you tried pressing the power button?"
    Stupid user: "OH! There we go! You're a life saver"

    Then I have a job.. and trust me, that person will exist at every organization till the end of time.

    Especially in organizations that have highly intelligent, specialized jobs, where they spent so much of their time learning about one thing, that they had to let the knowledge of other things fall by the wayside. Doctors are a HUGE example of this, I currently work at a hospital with a bunch of seemingly "retarded" Doctors and Nurses... All of whom are good at their jobs, but "retarded" or "disinterested" about technology.


  • Aidenf77, on 03/24/2008, -0/+6No. It's just evolving. It might have been the nerd in the corner cube with the pocket protectors and "birth-control" glasses condescending to any and all who didn't know as much he did. But today's IT environment is alive and kicking, and It's demanding more soft-skills, communication, and customer service expertise (in addition to job specific knowledge, skills and experience) than ever before.
  • samdu, on 03/24/2008, -0/+3Users still pretty much suck. And I don't see that changing any time soon.
  • PDF84, on 03/24/2008, -0/+5As long as there are morons, engineers, and government contracts, there will all was be IT.
    • PDF84, on 03/24/2008, -0/+2and people who cant spell too.
      dammit!

      should be "always"
  • MttPrrish, on 03/24/2008, -0/+6False. All I know is that I have users who can't even cut and paste. I..am..safe.
  • Majjoodi, on 03/24/2008, -0/+2As long as machines don't control humans, IT will not extinct.
  • boberthepker, on 03/24/2008, -0/+4IT isn't becoming extinct, it's simply evolving into a group of techies that actually have social skillz
  • seldon21, on 03/24/2008, -0/+1Here are some better questions in regards to IT? What have we changed? What have we made better? Who should be in the IT business? Who needs to get out of the IT business? (Last two questions are more organizational and not focused on a single set of people) Who does IT the best? Oh, how many IT projects longer that take longer than 6 months succeed?

    The answers are more for a full blog post but this should start the juices flowing.
    • hoopy22, on 03/24/2008, -0/+0I don't seem to one understand last of the sentence the of first paragraph.
  • mleaman, on 03/24/2008, -0/+2Shortsighted. Speaks mostly to a Help Desk environment, not enterprise system integration. Reads more like a list of how IT fails... A successful IT division is an important part of a successful enterprise. IT (as any department or group) is dead ended when it believes it is the required component for success, versus being a team player. Everyone counts down on the swing!
  • acatzr800, on 03/24/2008, -1/+1"This arrogant attitude reflects inability to adapt to present-day realities."

    erm... I'm a sys admin in an almost purely-mac environment. Its the other way around.
  • hoopy22, on 03/24/2008, -0/+3What a load of rubbish. Let's watch a "non-technical" person install an IBM P-590 and configure a Cisco 6500 switch.
    This author is fail.
  • jond, on 03/24/2008, -0/+8Yeah, IT is going to become extinct. lol. Next in line will be Doctors. Who needs them anymore, we have webmd now right? And people are healthier, and living longer.
    The writer is ignorant, and either works at a very small company who does simplex things, or simply has no clue what IT does.

    Without IT, the writer wouldn't be able to write this stupid blog.
    • strictnein, on 03/24/2008, -1/+2I know how to take aspirin! Are Doctors becoming extinict?!?
  • JABro, on 03/24/2008, -0/+1As long as spy-ware, dialog boxes, virus scans and general computer problems exist, IT will exist. There is a generation of users who are clueless as to how their machines work growing up right now...in fact I deal with them every day at my job in an IT department at a college. And it isn't the administration and faculty I'm referring to.
  • mGARANDEUR1, on 03/24/2008, -0/+2IT will never become extinct. As long as new technology keeps coming out that is temperamental, companies will find a need for people to fix them.
  • Jofaba, on 03/24/2008, -1/+3When it takes five minutes to get a user to fully comprehend how to execute "Windows + Letter R", and confuses their keyboard for the background image on their monitor, then I'm pretty sure I'll still have stuff to keep me busy.

    The thing that threatens my job is that when I get users like that, I tend to bring them to tears. What can I say? I'm not that great with idiots.
  • jcims, on 03/24/2008, -0/+3Try running UPS on social media and gmail.
  • doshindude, on 03/24/2008, -0/+5Quite the opposite. IT is quite a career to go into right about now.
    • MattBD, on 03/24/2008, -0/+2Hope so, it' what I'm planning to go into (dealing with life insurance is really crap!)
  • wickedjester007, on 03/24/2008, -0/+3The article doesn't really answer any questions. Being in the IT industry for over 12 years I have seen it evolve. Sometimes for the better, and other times not. This kind of article comes up every 5 years or so. IT will change, but not go away. Also I would have to agree with Lubinski2, yes I see a problem giving the muggles access to the technical is a very bad idea.
  • jmoo, on 03/24/2008, -0/+3I guess you will have to call me old school IT, as I don't see IT going anywhere. End users (young, old, experienced, inexperienced) all want the same thing - their computers and by extension their data to just work. Is it easier to setup a network and manage it? Yes it is but the demands put on that network have gone up.
    We have 75 users, years ago I might have just two or three servers handling file sharing, shared apps, and maybe a separate mail server. Now I have 8 servers, handling more than a dozen different apps, web servers, and VoIP. I can still manage the load with two people handling servers and end users. Throw in SOX or HIPAA which put a lot of work on an IT department and I don't see IT going anywhere anytime soon.
  • KaiSe7eN, on 03/24/2008, -1/+7Computer Science is mostly for Programmers, programmers aren't the entirety of the IT Industry. I guess Programmers also know how to design complex network architecture also right? Among the many other jobs in IT.
    • CaptainLando, on 03/24/2008, -1/+1Wrong!
      Programming is to Computer Science as a pencil is to writing. Computer Science is about using computers to solve a problem. Programming is just taking a solution someone else has designed and translating it into code that a computer can read. I recently visited Microsoft Research and one of their biggest projects was working on the cure for AIDS. Think about that.
      The reason people think Computer Science is for programming is that most of the students who graduate with a degree in Computer Science don't realize that it is NOT just about becoming a good programmer. And these are the people with degrees that are out of luck because all of the programming jobs (the lowest rung of the computer science ladder) have been outsourced to India!
  • dmadip, on 03/24/2008, -0/+2as long as business demand relies on applications (SAP, etc), IT will not go away. Maybe local PC technicians will not be needed but business will always rely on Application support, which in turn means infrastructure support is required.
  • doctadjones, on 03/24/2008, -0/+1"... offering a software-powered service that is delivered as an outsourced business process. The best example of this is ADP..."

    That's funny. We use ADP and I constantly get calls from our payroll department.
    They hate calling the "outsourced" support. They've said that they much prefer to have a familiar face they can talk to in person, rather than different unknown voices everytime they call ADP on the phone (not to mention the response time.)
  • swilson191, on 03/24/2008, -1/+1As long as we hold the keys to the kingdom, I think we're safe.



    FYI ~
    Yes, we CAN read all your emails, even if you delete them or try to copy them to your personal folders
    Yes, we CAN read all your financial and HR records.
    Yes, we CAN see all of your pictures you took on the weekend, from your kids birthday party to that wild weekend in Vegas.
  • chuckpoole, on 03/24/2008, -0/+4This article was written by someone who as no clue what they are talking about. Remove the IT staff (in-house or outsourced) from any business that has over 100 employees and I guarantee that company will go under. I have seen many companies where the "MBA" toting manager decides that he is smarter than the IT Manager and the company goes into a complete tailspin. Just like you need a CFO to run finance and accounting (because it is a highly technical discipline), you also need someone who knows what they are doing on the technical side. Even if that person decides to use SaaS tools, Outsourced technical support, or any other currently popular trend, you still need in-house professionals that guide and safeguard your company's direction without an outside financial inducement.

    IT is not becoming extinct. It is just evolving as it always has. There will always be new technology and you will always have users who "don't want to have to be a mechanic to drive a car". Sure cars have become almost idiot proof but you still need a mechanic when the ***** hits the fan. I own an IT services company and my business grows every year in good economies and bad ones. It will always be that way as long as I provide a service that users find valuable.

    I often tell people that I am not in the IT business, I am a business productivity consultant. The same holds true for in-house IT professionals.

    If you box yourself in you will become extinct in any business, not just IT.
  • laughandsing, on 03/24/2008, -1/+1Just the little caption sounded a bit like Tron to me. lol
  • chrispix, on 03/24/2008, -0/+2Hopefully it is soon, I have had enough dealing with technically retarded users, I just want one year of dealing with technically minded employees. We have so many issues, we got a call that wireless was out on this guys desktop, which was quite strange since it was a wired computer. Could not access the computer, so we called up the guy. He said his monitor said signal not detected. Asked if he could reboot the wireless router to fix the problem. We suggested turning ON the computer first.
  • JeyNyce, on 03/24/2008, -0/+3People are starting to have home networks, who are they going to call for help? IT is here to stay. We're just not as popular as we were before, we're like any other dept now.
  • Scotty87, on 03/24/2008, -0/+4No, last time I check - people were still stupid
  • rumblestrut, on 03/24/2008, -0/+2Last week a person on my company needed my help sending a vector image to the print shop we use for some materials.
    I find the file and send it to the person in our company, telling her she can send the file to the printer as we had previously discussed. She wrote back telling me that she was unable to open the file. I explained to her that yes, she wouldn't be able to open the file because she didn't have the software to open an Illustrator file, but that all she needed to do was forward it on to the printer and that they would be able to open it.
    She wrote back saying that she still wasn't able to open it. "I tried sending it to the printer but it wouldn't print."
    She was confusing printer (the hardware) with printer (the person who does our printing) when it had been very clear she needed to get the file to the latter.
    I just smiled. I'm not going anywhere.
  • localzuk, on 03/24/2008, -0/+1So what this article is saying is that we are in a period of change. Where IT is changing from being a 'I know, if we use this fancy new machine we'll be on the leading edge' thing to a 'the IT infrastructure sits in the background where it should always have been' thing.

    The thing is, the article then brings in outsourcing of services. There is far too little actual evidence that this model of using IT is sustainable as yet. There are so many instances where things being outsourced leads to major problems, as the supplier of those services is also trying to make as much profit as possible so will cut corners.

    And to put 'powerful tools into the hands of non-technical users' is just plain stupid. You wouldn't give a JCB to a child, and you shouldn't give powerful tools to non-techy users - you'll just end up with nonsense being produced which has little to no use in the business.

    IT is not dead, it is simply changing a bit. There will always be demand for support in house in businesses and to claim otherwise is just stupid.
  • mleaman, on 03/24/2008, -0/+4Self serving article. The writer is an IT consultant spreading FUD for his own financial benefit. Further demonstration of why ZDNET is in the crapper.
  • doctordbx, on 03/24/2008, -0/+1IT will never become extinct in the same way as many other business support services haven't. Accounting hasn't become obsolete, and HR seems to be growing like cancer in organisations, not shrinking.
    What will happen though is the 'power' of the IT department will be eroded and IT careers will become a bit dead end, or at least have less succession potential. Think of IT workers now as the car mechanics of the future, as it is already steadily moving to become IMHO what it a blue collar profession.
    There will of course always be positions for specialists and people who are blazingly good, but the opportunities are diminishing.
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