Cloud computing's real creative destruction may be the IT workforce

[dkf]

Cloud computing, which amounts to be the industrialization of enterprise technology infrastructure, will bring a lot of advantages coupled with a lot of lost jobs.

Few disagree that cloud computing will be disruptive to industries, enterprise technology and the way we conduct businesses. The disruption will extend to the workforce.

In other words, humans will be virtualized just like servers are. The upshot from cloud computing is that companies will need fewer data centers. People run data centers. Those jobs are likely to simply disappear.

Johan Jacobs and Ken Brant, two Gartner analysts, made the cloud computing-jobs connection last week at the Gartner Symposium in Orlando. The presentation was categorized as “maverick” in that it may not happen in the allotted time frame. Jacobs and Brant argued by 2020 demand for IT staff dedicated to supporting data centers will collapse.

“The long-run value proposition of IT is not to support the human workforce – it is to replace it,” wrote Gartner in its presentation. In other words, any job loss related to offshore outsourcing may look like a walk in the park once cloud computing gets rolling.

http://m.zdnet.com/blog/btl/cloud-computings-real-creative-destruction-may-be-the-it-workforce/61581

[Johnyawl]

1. Data center jobs were created by the introduction of new technology...

...now, new technology will destroy those jobs. It's a tragedy, just ask the buggy whip manufacturers.

[On the Road]

2. IT is Not a Fixed Set of Requirements

IT people tend to be creative about justifying their work. As jobs are lost to cloud computing, existing IT departments are going to a lot of other functions that their companies need to take back part of that. Some of it will be in internal data manipulation -- adding more value to existing sources, combining them, and making them more accessible to managers who are not programmers.

Cloud computing needs data centers, too -- they just require fewer employees. If they are more efficient, it's ultimately the right choice to move to that model.