<howard.brazee@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:tg9fu35t54b3t81rr6i4lv0kvcbo0ci225@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> http://blogs.zdnet.com/projectfailures/?p=666
>
> (Not from where I'm standing - but I might not be standing the right
> place)
I have been saying similar things for some time.
The arrogance of IT alienated it from the rest of the organization...
(I believe this was a major factor in the demise of COBOL; users just got
pissed of with being treated like crap and grabbed any alternate solutions
(packages, outsourcing, SaaS) as soon as they became available. Added to
this, you have a rising generation who are much more computer literate
than
their parents were and are quite cappable of devising their own (albeit,
"imperfect and disintegrated" from an IT perspective) solutions with
spreadsheets and databases. The resulting chaos is what we're seeing
today.
Getting a hold on this and integrating disparate IT operations throughout
the company so that a coherent picture can be derived is a large part of
what some IT departments are doing. This represents a ****ft in IT away
from
technical service and into management of information. the role of the
Technocrats is being ever diminished.)
The split between the Business and IT has always been a contrived one.
Agile
methodologies recognise this and are successfully (re-)combining the two.
Is IT becoming extinct? Depends what you mean by "IT"...
I don't think IT is becoming extinct (yet...) but the need for businesses
to
develop in-house IT applications is definitely under threat. There are
many
alternatives and some companies are getting really good value from
dropping
their IT departments. It is MUCH cheaper to simply buy the service than to
do it yourself.
In-house IT development is expensive (prohibitively so if you insist on
using procedural languages like COBOL with line-by-line hand carved
solutions...embedding your business into millions of lines of archaic
geek-code), and nobody likes the IT department anyway... they consistently
treat people who are not technical with condescension and arrogance and
are
not exactly warm and friendly when you need an IT service. Their track
record is abysmal, and most of the organisation would be very glad to see
the back of them. Why would you go to IT. cap in hand, when the new
students
in your department can knock you up a desktop solution in a day or so that
is exactly what you need?
The role of the in-house IT department to develop and provide services
will
definitely be taken out of the cor****ate environment and relegated to a
handful of software companies.
Long term, the Nirvana is for people to interact with, and utilise the
power
of, computers, without requiring specialist knowledge or interfaces or
go-betweens (like the Priests of COBOL). When this is attained (and it is
still a fair way off, although steps are made towards it every year...)
THEN
you could say IT was extinct.
Meantime, there are ASPECTS of IT which certainly are becoming, or even
have
become extinct.
Have you heard anyone discussing "EDP" recently?
Pete.
--
"I used to write COBOL...now I can do anything."
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