The future of IT jobs? Not all bad news, Carr says

Nicholas Carr, famous for his assertion that IT doesn't matter, explained himself to attendees of a recent live Network World Chat. While Carr contends that massive disruption is heading toward the IT job market, there is good news. IT is becoming increasingly important to the global economy which will create "rich opportunities" for those with the right IT skills, he says.

Moderator-Keith: Welcome and thank you for coming. Our guest today is industry visionary Nicholas Carr. Nick is author of several books including the 2004 title Does IT Matter? and the 2007 title The Big Switch: Rewiring the World from Edison to Google. Nick, thanks for being a guest.

Nick Carr: It's a pleasure to be here, and I look forward (I think) to the grilling.

Bret: In your book, Does IT Matter?, your premise is that IT (narrowly defined as the plumbing and pathways through which data is passed and or processed) no longer provides a competitive advantage and that IT will become a commodity provided by service providers. We are seeing the beginnings of this in my company. We have outsourced device monitoring and we are planning to contract device installation and wiring in our new data center. That said, over what period of time would you expect to see utility computing becoming the norm in industry?

Nick Carr: I think the shift will occur over the next decade or two. The speed will depend on who you are. Consumers are well on their way to relying on Web apps. Smaller companies will also likely move quickly to the utility model, as it allows them to avoid the big capital and labor costs of internal IT. Big companies will be the slowest to move - they'll pursue a hybrid model for many years.

JoeB: Who will be the first to adopt such a business model? Who will experience the most difficulty?

Nick Carr: On the business side, it will be small companies with fairly routine IT requirements. Large companies who face tight regulations on data and privacy - like those in the healthcare industry - face some of the biggest barriers.

Barmijo: Nick, many reviews of your book take issue with the idea of utility computing. They note that the big vendors don't offer anything approaching your vision. You, however, focus on Internet operators like Google and Amazon. Do you believe this shift has to start in the Internet, and if so why? 

Nick Carr: Like other disruptive innovations, utility computing is beginning with entrepreneurial vendors and smaller customers. But we can already see big vendors - Microsoft, SAP, IBM, HP etc - moving toward the utility model. I think they see which way the wind's blowing. 

JeffB: Although Microsoft, Google and other major computer companies are building massive data center facilities in specific areas, do you believe there will also be a need for distributed server farms in high population areas throughout U.S. cities?

Nick Carr: I think we'll see a very broad distribution of server farms, and some will be in or near cities. Microsoft, for example, is building its largest utility data center - and it may be the largest data center ever - just outside of Chicago. One of the big constraints on locating centers in urban areas is the constraint on the electric grid's ability to handle the power requirements.