The tech world is advancing the cloud model. This is a business reality. History repeats itself; last century companies shoveled coal and used water wheels to produce their own power to run the business until electric companies emerged. The cloud is “IT utility” computing. Just as the clout of the facilities department abated over many years, the IT department will follow suit to a certain extent. Premise-based IT systems will consolidate and virtualize, then embrace a phased approach to a specific, application-dependent, cloud model. The CIO will remain prominent by driving business value (cost savings). The CSO/CISO in turn will value a security integrator who improves the security business process today, yet understands the positioning required to leverage cloud platforms tomorrow.
Understanding how technology drives business results will trump pure technology and system installation expertise in the future. “Tech gurus” will still be critical, as will install technicians. But in cloud models there are far less of them because companies and integrators will not hire them, the cloud providers will. And there will be fewer cloud providers than corporate IT departments, integrators, and small businesses. The small, medium business (SMB) without an IT department today will not build one and hire the associated personnel — period.