Defy the Economy, Outsourcing, and More

Statistics about layoffs, unemployment rates, and more would have us all believe that nobody is safe from the effects of the economy. But, a recent article suggests that, at least in IT, it's what position you're in that really counts.

An article in the Fort Collins Coloradoan titled "Experts seeing more IT jobs than workers" takes a look at Colorado State University's CIS program and, combined with statistics from local employers, concludes that there is a shortage of qualified IT workers. Enrollment in the program has dropped significantly, and the demand for highly technical workers (especially in business management contexts) has never been higher.

How can this be, given the doom and gloom we hear on a daily basis? Could this region in Colorado (which is local to Penton Media's office that handles its IT publications, including System iNEWS) be an anomaly, or is there something to these results? Perhaps the problem is not that open positions don't exist, but rather that the current skill sets don't line up with the jobs currently in demand. Could we need more IT workers trained in core, strategic roles that can't be outsourced or replaced with less technical individuals?

To examine this issue further, I spoke with Jef Sutherland, former head of IT and current vice president of business for KOA Kampgrounds.

System iNEWS: How has the down economy shifted the job market for IT pros?

Sutherland: The obvious answer is for those looking for jobs, they are finding a tighter market. I don't know if the article you refer to could be regional and there are pockets of the nation where the IT pro is finding more openings. For those with IT jobs now, they may find reduced work hours in the form of mandatory days off as well as hiring freezes and pay freezes. We went into a hiring freeze even though our budget called for adding a programmer in 2009. We went so far as finding the right candidate but then held off as we realized this position was a "nice to have" versus a "need to have."

System iNEWS: How have these shifts interacted with changes in the job market due to the changing environment over the past decade (examples include: outsourcing, virtualization, cloud computing/hosted solutions, mobility/smartphones)?

Sutherland: A tighter market, a tighter budget doesn't mean the work isn't still there. Companies still have to produce to keep the doors open. These shifts mean taking a new look at ways to be more productive or cut costs. If anything, this reset of the market has opened our eyes to the changing environment items you mention.

System iNEWS: What types of positions will employers always want to keep in house?

Sutherland:Smart companies keep core positions in house. If the IT pro is involved in the business's core activity, then that position should be kept in house. That means areas such as networking, maintenance, and support are options for outsourcing. Usually, this means development/developers are kept in house when that team works on the company's core set of applications or produces a proprietary product.

System iNEWS: What should IT pros be doing right now to shift into these types of positions?

Sutherland:Analyze their current skill set. What is needed to get into core, in-house positions? If training budgets are cut, what is an IT pro willing to do on their own time or with their own dollars to improve their personal assets they can offer? And, depending on the environment of the organization, an IT pro should be asking their supervisor for opportunities.

Don't hole up in the office and just hope you aren't in the next downsizing memo. Be active, show you care, ask for a chance to grow. It doesn't take a lot of money sometimes for somebody to learn how they can help the company—they just have to be given the opportunity.

System iNEWS: How can IT pros leverage the skills they have already developed (e.g., programming, development) to help them secure business/management positions?

Sutherland: A little bit to the prior point, make sure their value is being brought out. Offer to assist, help, mentor, or learn in a project that may be outside of your current role or job description. Just the fact that you ask is a plus.

System iNEWS: Do you have any words of wisdom or encouragement for individuals who have been laid off, hit with pay cuts, or forced to downgrade to a lower-level IT position?

Sutherland: I have the same advice as for the last question and it is one word: network. It isn't what you know, it is who you know that will make the difference. Be around people, make contacts, be ready to be seen. Have the right attitude about the situation: look for the opportunity with a smile.
—Brian Reinholz, Production Editor

WebSphere Loves What?

Did you catch the Microsoft ad campaign focused on WebSphere loving Windows vs. WebSphere hugging AIX? "Who knew?" is an in-your-face price/performance comparison of WebSphere running on IBM solutions vs. on a Hewlett-Packard solution, then it tosses in a here's-what-the-application-would-do-when-it's-written-using-the-Microsoft-.NET-Framework-instead slap.

Microsoft created a special website, WebSphereLovesWindows.com, which launches with a series of assertions like the Windows Server platform provides customers with enterprise-level performance and capability without enterprise-level costs, customers who run IBM WebSphere on Windows Server 2008 pay up to 66 percent less than those on POWER6, and customers can save up to 81 percent in total system costs by running applications on Microsoft .NET Framework and Windows Server 2008 rather than IBM WebSphere 7 on POWER6/AIX.

Furthermore, a study prices out an IBM Power 570 with WebSphere 7 and AIX 5.3 at $260,000 vs. an HP BladeSystem C7000 with WebSphere 7 and Windows Server 2008 at $87,000, while the HP BladeSystem C7000 with .NET and Windows Server 2008 rolls in at $50,000.

After the stimulating presentation, the Microsoft site offers case studies, videos, analyst reports, technical guidance, and, of course the aforementioned study.

Overall, I'm impressed—not with the funky comparison of running the single app on a 570 vs. an HP BladeCenter and the silly comparisons between the two. No, I'm impressed that Microsoft put on the gloves and decided to enter the ring. Sure, the company might be reduced to hitting below the belt and biting an ear here and there; but hey, they are stepping into the ring. It's like Microsoft is shouting, "Hey, it's not just about POWER6 destroying Sun and HP in the Unix space; we're here, too!"

The funny thing is, should IBM launch a salvo at Microsoft over this? Who knows. In the meantime, Elisabeth Stahl, IBM's chief technical strategist of performance marketing for the IBM Systems and Technology Group, wrote a blog in response to the ads and the study:

". . . the number of cores, the middleware and network configurations, the scale, and even the trading applications used are not the same. The HP configuration had twice the number of cores and four times the amount of memory. It's like saying a Granny Smith is better than a Clementine.

"The entire presumption of the Microsoft study was absurd in that it created a nonsensical environment comparing a blade system to an enterprise class server. An enterprise server is designed for server consolidation, heavy transaction performance, superior availability, scalability, and virtualization. This "benchmark" did not make mention of or leverage any of these functions. Note also that a higher performing replacement to the Power 570 model used in the study has been available for many months.

"Oh, and by the way, these are "Microsoft-conducted tests." That's kind of like leaving my dog with a box of milk bones and telling him not to eat any."

Stahl doesn't bother to go into more detail, but I do have to leave you with two doses of irony:

Dose #1: The Fine Print—If you read the fine print in the study, the Microsoft document is especially beautiful: "Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, this document should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information presented."

Am I only one laughing here?

Dose #2: Will Someone Please Slam IBM i on POWER6?—The last bit of irony here is, will someone go after IBM i running on POWER6? Because, after all, doesn't a big nasty marketing campaign at least signal a bit of serious validation?
—Chris Maxcer, News Editor

Pair of Third Parties Validates IBM's App Dev Strategy

IBM reported that analyst firm Gartner has ranked IBM as the worldwide leader in the application development software space, while Evans Data Corp. found that app dev users were most pleased with IBM in its "Users' Choice: 2009 Software Development Platform" survey.

More specifically, Gartner named IBM the worldwide market share leader in application development based on total software revenue in 2008. This is the eighth consecutive year that IBM continues to lead in this space, IBM says. According to the independent Gartner report, IBM leads the industry with 27.1 percent share in 2008, growing 7.9 percent as compared to the overall segment's growth of 4 percent. Gartner reports the total worldwide market for application development in 2008 was $7.3 billion.

IBM Rational tools also achieved "top honors" in the annual Evans Data Corp. Software Development Platform User Satisfaction survey, IBM reports. Rational was ranked higher than development tool offerings from several competitors, including Microsoft, Oracle, and Sun. The survey was conducted last spring and polled 1,200 worldwide developers. For the first time in four years, Evans Data Corp. expanded the scope of its user satisfaction survey beyond an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) study to instead rate a broader array of development tools, IBM says.
—Chris Maxcer, News Editor

IBM Intros Easy POWER7 Upgrades, VM Software

IBM has introduced a new upgrade path to its next generation of Power Systems based on the POWER7 microprocessor. Basically, if you're on a POWER6-based 570 or 595, you can upgrade your system to take advantage of POWER7—when it becomes available, that is.

IBM didn't say when it would introduce POWER7 microprocessors, but hey, you don't have to a be a kindergartner learning to count to know it's coming.

And be on the lookout for the new IBM Systems Director VMControl, which will come in handy if you've got tons of virtualized machines running on your Power System that you need to manage.
—Chris Maxcer, News Editor

Cobol Celebrates 50 Years

Cobol turned 50 in May.

Yes, that's right. Happy birthday Cobol! The meetings (at the Pentagon, no less) that initiated Cobol occurred May 28 and 29 in 1959.

According to a survey conducted by Harris Interactive and commissioned by Micro Focus (a vendor of enterprise application management and modernization solutions), only one in four survey respondents have heard of Cobol or know what it is.

According to the survey results, the average American relies on Cobol at least 13 times per day for routine activities such as making phone calls, using a credit or debit card, and commuting to and from work. All these daily transactions are originally based on Cobol.

And yet three quarters of the surveyed folks are oblivious to the programming language that originally made it all possible.
—Rita-Lyn Sanders, Senior Industry Editor