Enterprise Initiatives

So many exciting changes are happening in the world of IT today. Look at all the hot topics from around the net that we read about each day:

• Virtualization
• Web 2.0
• SOA
• BPM
• Saas
• Outsourcing
• Open Source
  
• Mobile Computing
• Event Driven Architectures
• Mashups
• Collective Intelligence
• Super fast chip technology
  

What does this all mean to the future of IT? Most of these technologies (if done right) will impact the workplace in a variety of ways. Some of these technologies will enable people to be fully functional from remote locations (Mobile Computing, Web 2.0, Mashups, Collective Intelligence). Some of these technologies will eliminate human processes both in the business (BPM, SOA, Event Driven Architectures) and IT (Virtualization, Outsourcing, SaaS). Others will make us less dependent on the big vendors (Open Source, Virtualization). Then there are the advancements in chip technology and memory which can really rock our world. Can you say diskless PCs?

So as I read article after article, day after day, I begin to wonder what this all means to the working people in IT. I can be pessimistic about the future of IT and paint a picture that looks like this:

• Mass virtualization - elimination of many systems administration and networking jobs
• Mass Outsourcing - Most of development farmed out due to cost effectiveness of remote development (both onshore and offshore)
• Less internal development - Reduction of development jobs due to effective end user tools (BPM, Mashups, Web 2.0), external development (Outsourcing, SaaS), and improved collaboration and automation (Collective Intelligence, Event Driven Architectures, SOA)
  

Or I could take an optimistic view of the future of IT:

• Business Alignment - business heavily relies on IT for automating and streamlining business processes (BPM, SOA, Event Driven Architectures)
  
• Enterprise architecture - Architecture becomes key differentiator and enabler
  
• Rapid development, less maintenance - Tools (Mashups, Web 2.0) and architecture provide a platform to rapidly deploy. IT delivers loosely couple services, not proprietary monolithic applications, which reduces maintenance and allows for more new development.
• Cost effective computing - Business looks to IT as a partner and an enabler instead of a cost center. IT makes the business efficient (Mobile Computing, fast chip technology, collective intelligence) while being cost effective (SaaS, Virtualization, Out Sourcing, Open Source, BPM, etc.).

My belief is that it will come down to the IT leadership, mainly the CIO. The CIO needs to measure and promote the value of the IT department as we move through these dramatic changes in technology over the next few years. He or she must be a trusted business partner to the CEO, CFO, and COO. IT should be proactive and start implementing these technologies (where it makes sense) to enable the business, as opposed to waiting for the business to tell IT to implement these technologies to reduce costs and headcount.

So what is your view of the future of IT? Is it pessimistic or optimistic? If it is pessimistic, what are you doing to change it?