Posted on 11/15/2013 7:52:02 AM PST by SeekAndFind
One of the givens of working in IT is that the pace of technology changes rapidly, and so too, do the skills that are needed to stay current. Here are 10 that John Hales, a VMware instructor at Global Knowledge says are going away:
1. Windows XP/2003 and earlier. Why? Mainly because the operating systems are reaching their end of life and won’t be supported/updated by Microsoft any longer. Also, new applications no longer support them.
2. Silverlight. This was Microsoft’s answer to Adobe Flash and it can’t be used with the new Windows Store (metro) apps or on a Windows phone.
3. Adobe Flash. After Adobe stopped supporting mobile platforms in 2011, more websites started moving to HTML 5, which works on mobile and desktop Oss. While there is still demand for Flash, Hale thinks it has peaked.
4. COBOL, FORTRAN and other mainframe languages. Although they were popular and commonly used for years, the majority of programming work has transitioned to modern, object-oriented languages like ObjectiveC, Java, C++ and C#.
5. Lotus Notes administrator. Once one of the three big platforms, now more people are moving to hosting email in the cloud or using free platforms like Gmail.
6. Novell GroupWise administrator. Marketshare for GroupWise appears to be rather small in most industries, Hale believes.
7. Traditional telephony. Use of PBXs is declining as more and more companies are switching to mobile platforms, VoIP-enabled phones and collaborative communications platforms like Microsoft Lync.
8. Server-only admin skills. Virtualization is becoming more ubiquitous and fewer physical servers are being deployed, meaning there are fewer to set up and configure.
9. Help desk technicians/level 1 support. There is less demand for help desk skills as they are mainly outsourced to other companies and also off-shore.
10. PC repair techs. Demand for this skill set is decreasing, although it is not going away. However, tablets are being used more frequently in place of PCs and laptops, and there is very little that needs to be fixed in a tablet.
What do you think--do you agree with these choices? Are there others that should be on the list?
I find now one of the hottest skills is JavaScript, especially jQuery.
I agree with most of these. However, PC desktop support is always going to be required. The PC is not going anywhere, and I don’t know of a single company in the US using solely tablets or solely Apple/Droid devices.
If you need a job in IT, knowing Linux often gets you an interview, even for Windows-based shops, since Linux is the backbone of major systems like VMware.
Can someone make SAP go away?
I should know...I am a certified solutions architect in both platforms, and there is basically no one anywhere standing up new implementations. The only work left is for existing installations needing maintenance and extension, or for porting data to the cloud. 6 month contracts, all.
Fortunately I can do about a dozen other things. Not starving. Yet.
I had to laugh at the “mainframe” jab. We’ve been hearing for 30 years now about how the mainframe is a dinosaur and COBOL skills are obsolete and blah blah blah. But with billions of lines of COBOL code in place in some of the world’s most critical IT infrastructure, COBOL isn’t about to die out. if you want to make millions, put a couple of old COBOL dinosaurs on retainer and in about 10 years when there is no one left to support all those critical mainframe apps, you can name your price.
Ping!
Are the banks now able to move their transaction processing off mainframes?
I haven’t been in the industry in over a decade. When I left, mainframes were still chugging through the nightly transactions because there was really nothing else capable of the processing volume.
I take issue with #1. The NT architecture hasn’t significantly changed since W2k; Microsoft has merely piled on more bloat.
Adobe Flash can’t go away fast enough for me. The endless error messages and demands to download updates have been the bane of my existence.
"No, but I'm often told I look like one."
My dad made a small fortune doing COBOL remediation prior to Y2K. He said that if you could spell "COBOL" properly, you were given a blank check.
I’d like to see lotus notes banned.
I’m finding myself to be more computer literate than the kids these days. They use an app for everything.
...Microsoft has merely piled on more bloat.
Maybe so, but isn't Microsoft a government? Isn't bloat one of the few things govenment does well?
I'm old school. Not REALLY old school, but fondly remember DOS, and how well it worked, if you knew what you were doing.
What I see from "kids" these days is that they don't understand why they do things to PCs. There's just a problem, they Google it, then slap in whatever the website they find tells them to do.
Unfortunately, and at the enterprise level, the "Why" is usually important.
However, the positive thing is that it doesn't take many critical screwups to either convince the kids to move along to another profession, or to learn to said "Waitaminute...why are we doing this, again? What's the end result going to be?"
Now please excuse me, I need to go and shake my cane at some kids in my server room. "Hey you kids! Get offa my............"
RE: , but isn’t Microsoft a government? Isn’t bloat one of the few things govenment does well?
One HUGE difference... Microsoft has NO CONTROL over how I spend my money. Unless they create products that PLEASE ME, they can’t FORCE me to patronize their products.
Try that with government...
And Java (not JavaScript) has largely attempted to replace by becoming COBOL. Spring-tastic, apache-ville, and Oracle/Ibm J2E level software cathedrals are just as bloated, clunky, time consuming and error prone as IMS, CICS, and JCL back into the day. And mind numbingly boring. Gimme straight C or assumed to really understand what the damn thing is doing. Graybeard-mode-off.
jQuery seems merely like an optimized, more-readable javascript.
I have another one:
11.) Designers of government websites.
I will tip my hat to Win 7, though -- so far, so good.
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