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- Nougat, on 10/12/2007, -2/+17Nonsense. This article makes it sound like "Hey, we're not going to need IT departments anymore!" Who's gonna build the servers, workstations, firewalls, VPNs, security model? Who's gonna enforce standards (because anyone who's worked in IT knows damn well that without standards, everything turns to ***** in a big hurry - and that's *with* IT)?
This is how executives, who can't see the value of IT and consider it a cost center, may see it. "Hey, we don't need IT anymore!" Yeah, good luck with that and call me in six months to fix everything. - cynicist, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8I agree with Nougat, the article was very misleading. At first it seemed as if it was saying there was no more need for corporate IT departments, and then that consumers were influencing business practices by using newer technologies. Overall it was confusing. Is it saying that IT departments job should be telling CEO's to start blogging or to use AJAX apps for the office? I thought it was to make sure the computers and the network they're on are safe and reliable.
On a side note this web 2.0 ***** is getting on my nerves. - doublebackslash, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9@AlexApetrei
sarcasm?
Either way, I work for a consulting firm that acts as an outside IT department. We often go into places that have has a very 'laissez-faire' attitude toward IT. We put a stop to that fast. Once companies loose some data, get a little hacked, or whatever they see that we are the good guys and our cost is cheaper than poor/lost productivity due to computer problems. Management can be quite uptight about computer 'costs', but being an outside consulting firm we get to avoid certain pressures that internal IT feels. For example we are a lot bigger than most IT departments, and have much more experience, so we always make good choices. We also have a proven track record. IF we say something is golden the customer believes it.
Don't worry about his 'consumer driven IT' *****, IT will makes the bosses happy and that will be that. The users don't know what is good for them. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6I think corporations will always need their IT staff.
I also hope it does not become a consumer driven feild. Almost any side work I do for "consumers" is a nightmare. Most of the people I go on service calls for should not own a PC. - sanitys3j, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5In regards to Phil246 comment, I'm totally with you. It very much reminds me of "A Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley. Everyone's just a consumer & only worth as much as they're able to consume.
- esc27, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4And what are these major factors driving consumer IT? WOW, MySpace, and a handful of the so called web 2.0 apps. Somehow I doubt corporations would approve of employees playing games or fooling around with personal social networking sites instead of doing their jobs, and why should employees choose a web 2.0 app to do a task he or she has been using enterprise software to do for years?
If all a company does is spreadsheets and text, then I suppose it is possible to do that online, but many companies have to use specialized software. Are there web apps sophisticated enough to not only do specialized calculations, but access a restricted, subscription database offered by long running "old school" software firms? I doubt it.
The "old" stuff will have to stick around because the corporate markets will demand it, and regardless of what happens with consumers, corporations will remain a valuable market. - aroedl, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Consumer-led IT, eh? Well, dear Gartner analysts, tell that Google and watch carefully for their reaction. Who is the "consumer" you're talking about? The in-house user or the customer of a company? I just can't see a Google secretary or one of Googles customers in the data center with 100k servers.
Gartner is almost always far away from the reality. - MrCobaltBlue, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4"He advised corporate IT executives to adapt to the changes and prepare for what he called "digital natives," or people so fully immersed in digital culture that they are unconcerned about the effects of their technology choices on the organizations that employ them. "
This quote concerns me, because its true... The one example I can think of immediately is Boot Camp/Parallels. The users don't care if they can lose all their data, they don't care if they're unable to authenticate to the domain due to the time difference on the PC side of boot camp, they don't care if there's licenseing issues. They want Windows on their Mac, and will raise a huge stink until the IT department caves. - williamdyer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Gartner is saying whatever ***** they think their clients will pay to hear them say:
"Our core hypothesis is that an agility-oriented, bifurcated strategy--one reliant on top-down control and management, the other dependent on bottom-up, free-market style selection--will ultimately let IT organizations play to their strengths while affording their enterprises maximum opportunity as well,"
I would have to be drugged off my ass to say something like that without laughing. - SVPirate, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3It's an interesting read, but to bew honest the vast bulk of 'consumers' are still well below the levels of expertise required to be both user and admin. The trend is there for this to becime a reality sometime down the line, but at the moment a lot of people still find the internet, and computers in gerenal cumbersome and unweildy tools, which breed more FUD than creativity.
There is also a danger of people who *think* they know getting control, when they lack the actual skills required to control effectively. It's a dangerous prospect that should be avoided. - jg5985, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4No matter how much the end user will be taking on portions of the IT role they will always want (need) someone to fix it WHEN (not if) they ***** it up.
- silverstrike, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Alex -
Tell ya what. Go ahead and rebuild your windows PC with the first Windows CD you find laying around. (sans SP, as that's likely what a "normal" user would find first). Plug it into the internet. You can even try to configure a firewall.
I'll give you a call in a week, to see how you're doing, because I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that you're not going to be able to read an email I send.
And after that, you tell me that IT departments aren't needed.
No matter how "smart" the machines get, they are still programmed by people. And there 's always someone out there who can think of something you didn't. Its very similar to an arms race, the other side will always build a bigger gun. - immrlizard, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I really don't understand how they come up with this. These are the same types of people that said we would be in flying cars by now. You see how that worked out. I am part of an IT department and know that my job is secure. I try to educate users on how to properly secure their home machine and keep it patched, but they really don't want to do that. They want to turn it on and go. They aren't interested in this. They just buy another one when it dies or gets infected. I had someone bring me a laptop last week that had never been patched in 3 years and coincidentally, that is when norton ran out, 3 years ago. Lucky for them they used dialup. If they were the exception then maybe I would accept that maybe somewhere down the road IT departments would be cut. I find that for the most part that this is the rule. Another home user was infected by a virus (and was informed about it)for several years before a change in policy allowed us to terminate her ability to connect in from home. The company I work for offers FREE enterprise version of a virus program and yet there are so few who actually take advantage of it. I used to send out e-mails warning of specific new virus threats and got complaints that they weren't interested in having it take up space in their mailbox. Those messages were plain text and about 6k in size.
- tryferos, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3"Consumers" aren't keeping pace with all the advanced technologies that make a business level IT structure work and they dont care about learning it. Why should they devote time and energy to learn that? The expertise usually required for corporate level networks is not something that comes without years of training and cant just be learned overnight by a casual user.
Sounds like some analysts were feeling lonely and just wanted to get some attention... - Clp727, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3That happens multiple times on a daily basis!
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3we are still in the dark ages of computers if you really think of it. I mean the internet has really only been around (widely accessible) for 10 or 11 years, and PC's really haven’t come together until that time. So for anyone to announce commoditisation of IT is far to early.
When code can write and fix it's self on a computer that is made from an organic jelly like thing then you may not need an IT department. - CosmicJustice, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3"Our core hypothesis is that an agility-oriented, bifurcated strategy--one reliant on top-down control and management, the other dependent on bottom-up, free-market style selection--will ultimately let IT organizations play to their strengths while affording their enterprises maximum opportunity as well," the Gartner report said.
If it sounds like ***** it probably is *****. - NanoStuff, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Interesting times ahead, though I didn't care much for that article.
- meg33k, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3A more compelling piece was the "IT Doesn't Matter" story from the Harvard Business Review. In either case they're still drastically off base. Unless manufacturers can cajole consumers to surrender their freedom to choose and give up variety, the complexity of the system will inherently demand the ability to make informed decisions and selections. That means a basis for those decisions and selections (ie. Knowledge Base) so what expert system will do that? Therefore: Human driven IT will continue to be relevant.
- Charlotte_Web, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The current generation of IT solutions will get easier to use. That's a no-brainer.
However, business is all about staying competitive. A whole host of new apps and new technologies will hit the market that will require IT skills that the average consumer does not possess.
Just look at the web. It was designed to be a simple way to disseminate information to a global audience. Just straight HTML with a little bit of graphics support thrown in. Has it stayed that way? No way! Sure, anybody can produce an HTML page by clicking Save as HTML in MS Word; THAT technology has gotten easier. But, turn around and ask that same user to produce an AJAX-enabled site using Ruby on Rails and they will have no idea what you're talking about. - Dred, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I agree with that. It seems that users today also can't even run simple tasks from there computers that they do not do on a regular basis. That is why IT is always going to be needed to fill the gaps between what people regularly use and what they don't.
- Nougat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@Alex
Spoken like someone who has no idea what his IT department actually does.
First, that argument is completely regressive. Who will set up and configure the machines that set up and configure the machines? And who will set up and configure the machines that configure the machines that configure the machines? How many machines do you want to have lined up, each setting up and configuring the next? How much is that going to cost? Probably a lot more than just hiring someone to set up and configure the first machine, the one you want to do the work.
Next.
Technology does not exist in a vacuum. Much of IT work is making sure that existing systems continue to run optimally, and recover from failures when they happen. Also, providing documentary evidence of reliability and security for auditing purposes.
Next.
Let's say that your company has grown, and you'd like a better way for salespeople to manage the flow of the sales process. That's known as CRM (Customer Relationship Management), and there are a number of CRM systems available, at varying levels of cost. Last I checked, you can't just wave a magic wand and *poof* have a fully functional CRM system that meets all your business' needs. Someone needs to do that.
I'll stop there. - bloodmoney, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Every notice how every article that quotes Gartner is full of *****? Who are these ***** morons?
- williamdyer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1There is no way IT departments can fix that *****.
Imagine if the army managed rifles that way: "Uh, sarge, it's jammed, and the rifle support guy is busy with some machinegun thingy. I wish I could just press a button and make the right thing happen! - bobothn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1hell mine cant even turn on a monitor.
- Ryosen, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"a large-scale shift in technology influence toward consumers and away from central corporate IT departments."
It's called "Christmas". - Phil246, on 10/12/2007, -6/+6off topic but i dislike how people are referred to as consumers nowadays. we're customers goddamnit, treat us with a little respect.
merely being a consumer of something dehumanises us - AntiMe, on 10/12/2007, -3/+0Mr. \, comment dug down due to being able to spell and use 'laissez-faire' and yet somehow not knowing what the word "loose" means. Please return to english class.
- AlexApetrei, on 10/12/2007, -14/+2sorry dude, your job is obsolete .
The tasks you perform now will in future be performed by a machine, the very machines you help to service and program now.
Get used to it.
It's not necesarily a bad thing, you can have more time to spend with your girlfriend, decorating the house and stuff like that. OR fight a vicious war against the machine overlords. ^_^
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