Effect of cloud computing on future IT jobs

Grazed from ITWorld. Author: Eric Bloom.

Rick Chapman, the Founder of SaaS University, managing editor of Softletter and author of the just released book SaaS Entrepreneur: The Definitive Guide to Success in Your Cloud Application Business, and I spoke earlier this week. Our discussion centered around the use of SaaS within IT and its future effect on IT jobs.

Rick’s belief is that the number of jobs within IT will decrease over the next ten to twenty years. This is the case because many of the systems previously developed and/or purchased and supported by IT staff members will eventually be replaced by SaaS (cloud) based applications which do not require internal IT staff. He went on to say that not all applications would be replaced, primarily only those applications which companies do not feel are truly key to their internal process or contain proprietary algorithms. For example, it’s unlikely that a financial trading firm management firm will outsource the software used for stock analysis and trading or that a large retail company processing milions of transactions will outsource its credit card processing systems to a “cloud” outsource…

So what does this mean regarding IT related jobs inside and outside of IT? It means a number of things including the following:

• There will be the need for a higher percentage of Business Analysts in IT because user requirements must still be collected, cloud-based vendors must still be selected, and applications must still be integrated into business processes.
• There will be the need for a higher percentage of Project Managers within IT because more systems can be implemented with less internal IT resources…

Read more from the source @ http://www.itworld.com/career/322016/effect-cloud-computing-future-it-jobs