[clug] Interesting article

[Paul Wayper]

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Michael James wrote:
| http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/02/it_trends_2009_fforecast/
|
| Quotes:
|
| IT becomes an increasingly throwaway business.
| Forget complex processor technology or clever storage solutions.
| Install massive redundancy of cheap commodity gear.
|
| Just about every major company funds a junkyard
|  of application systems and technologies attached to them.
| Depression-level economics will force line managers
|  to actually take charge of this expense they unknowingly caused.

I can't agree with some of the sentiment in the article.  Yes, of course
outsourcers have been trying to sell their services to anyone that would
listen.  But outsourcing is simply one level of cost added on and one level of
accountability taken away from any business.  They're harder to get any work
out of, they'll deliver what they think you want rather than what you actually
want, and when you try to do something about it all these lawyers and
negotiators appear in the room.  As an employee I have much more loyalty to
the company or group I'm working for than their customers, or their customers'
customers, and while I expect myself to give good support to anyone in that
chain, if your employer says "you get paid per phone call" you learn to hang
up on people really quickly.

Put it this way.  When I was at DPI in Queensland, every year or so someone in
management would say "why don't we outsource the IT support?".  And we in IT
support would say "why don't we outsource middle management" and they would
shut up again.  Sure, outsourcing's going to be around, in the same way that
people keep on buying Microsoft.  I think commodity hardware and free software
will win in the end, but I think we're already seeing a shift away from
'commodity support', because it's being shown to be consistently lower quality
than in house support.

Just my thoughts,

Paul
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