Is the corporate IT department dead

Submitted by Patrick Grote on Fri, 01/02/2009 - 1:44pm.

Nicholas Carr is a bold author who takes a long term view of the world. He published a book last year entitled, "he Big Switch" that runs through moving from a local based computing model to a cloud based computing model. During this switch IT departments will be reduced drastically as the support processes move behind the scenes. As someone who provides corporate IT support this is an eye opening statement.

Before I list some reasons why I don't think the corporate IT groups should go on the endangered species list, I need to let you know I am huge cloud supporter. Back in the day I was involved in testing the first cluster applications for NT when Digital released them for their Alpha boxes. I saw the future. When the web hit I was a huge proponent on moving as many applications as possible onto web servers. The savings in resources were fantastic and the reliability increased.

There are three main reasons why I don't think IT support groups will disappear, though I do think the nature of their assembly will change:

1) Hand holding: Regardless of the current generation of workers coming up, there will always be a need to help someone work through an issue. Yes, software and services are getting better, but the availability of polished applications is lessening. If you look at any stand alone application versus a service the differences are stark. For instance, look at Microsoft Word versus Zoho Writer. Word allows more functionality, but it also has much better control and design. The hand holding for Word is limited these days due to familiarity and testing in the marketplace. With services once you get past the basic functionality it's all bets off. The aspect of helping someone through an issue will still be needed.

2) Responsiveness: I have yet to encounter a web based service that offers the immediate and indepth service a corporate IT shop can. While strides have been made in servers and other background processes, no company has conquered the local feel and attention. I think this is due to the uniqueness of most businesses, but I will concede that it all comes down to choices. Do you want to pay for that more immediate attention? Do you want to expend the resources for the local support team?

3) No big changes: Back in the day PCs were replaced every two years. Software was updated annually. Operating systems changed every two years. There were always changes. If you look across the corporate landscape now you see a "it's good enough for us" mentality. Windows XP is good enough. The older version of Office still runs fine. We'll just add more memory to the machines instead of replacing them. This takes the focus of the corporate IT support team from these large rollouts and allows you to focus on providing service.

I do think things are going to change markedly in the next ten years, but regardless of where or how the applications and services are delivered the corporate IT support team isn't going to disappear, it's just going to change.