There's a new book by a guy named Nicolas Carr, called The Big Switch: Rewiring the world from Edison to Google. It's reviewed here http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/010708-carr-it-dead.html
Predictions from Mr. Carr:
1. IT departments are dying and will soon be dead,
2. The PC is dying and will be in a museum in 20 years,
3. Software developers will all be out of work soon, as will journalists, etc.
What a load of crap.
1. Mr. Carr states that IT departments are going to die because companies will outsource all their IT needs to "utility" companies that will do all the work for them. We've all been here before, guys. IT was dead when minicomputers allowed departments to do their own computing. IT was dead when PCs came along allowed everyone to do their own computing. IT was dead when the Internet allowed everyone to do their own research and handle all their own communications. So now IT is dead because a very old idea (outsourcing computing - can you say client-server? thin-client?) will cause companies to let Google do all their computing. Yawn.
IT is not dead - IT will evolve, as it has for the last 50 years. Get over it.
2. PCs are already in museums. Desktops may change in the future, and mobile computing may become ubiquitious, but I doubt desktops will completely fade away unless someone comes up with a laptop battery that will last a month. There's still big iron out there, after all, despite the millions of PCs.
3. Mr. Carrs argument about software developers is that because all these new utility companies can get by with so few employees, that developers will no longer be needed. Crap. Who does he think creates the Skype code? the Google doc tools? browsers? operating systems? networking software? widgets?
These things don't create themselves. Dating companies can get by with few employees because they are aggregators of existing software. Who does he think writes all that software?
As I said, what a load of crap.
