The global future of IT

Chuck Hollis, Vice President of Technology Alliances at EMC, has laid out his vision of the future of IT and what that means for IT professionals. His perspective is positive but he highlights that today's technologists will need to adapt to a world where their focus is more on information than technology and how to integrate internal services with those of external suppliers. The implication is that technology will be increasingly encapsulated into services sparing everyone apart from the creators the need to get their hands technologically dirty.

I go along with this. But I would also throw into the mix globalisation. It will mean that many infrastructure roles will migrate to so called low cost countries. Only those roles that are user-touching are likely to remain local. And those that remain local will need to be skilled in working with distributed teams made up of multiple cultures.

However, the good news for those concerned about their livelihood drifting to foreign lands is that India and China (and Brazil and Russia) are growing economically more powerful. They will cease to be low cost and are likely to see western countries as useful from both from a holiday destination perspective  and from an investment perspective. Buying an ailing bank or picking up some cheap property will become more the norm.

Ultimately their economies will be such that IT services will be seen as a second class occupation and so will turn to those economically weak western countries to seek out cheap IT talent. What goes around comes around. Those that prepare for this future will feel they have the most control over their professional destinies.