The Times They Are a Changing

I was a presenter to a local group of CIO's last week, the majority of whom had been displaced and were looking for a new opportunity in the greater Phoenix area.

I had planned to deliver a power point presentation outlining the present landscape for Cloud Computing, but as we went around the room and made introductions, it became obvious to me that I should scrap the presentation and speak from the heart about my journey and the perspective I've obtained about the way forward for Information Technology and how it's going to be changed forever as a result of Cloud Computing.

My discussion became largely interactive and centered on these points.

In the first place there are fewer opportunities for IT executives in corporate America today, not just because of a poor economy. Poor economies are more often than not, the impetus for most companies to make the necessary adjustments in terms of jobs, which is long overdue.

The truth is that most of those jobs aren't coming back anytime soon, if ever.

When you look at the employment landscape in this country, it's readily apparent where the opportunity lies.

Mike Clough in his article, "America Runs On Small Business" noted the following:

"Only one-tenth of one percent of U.S. businesses have more than 500 employees. 98.2% have fewer than 100 employees. 89.3% have fewer than 20 employees. 78.6% have fewer than 10 employees and 60.8% have fewer than 5 employees."

Since the dawn of IT solutions, small and medium sized businesses have been on the outside looking when it comes to automation opportunities. Their needs almost always ignored by the manufacturers of IT solutions in favor of the bigger prize in the enterprize space.

To a certain extent the internet offered some hope, but in order to substantially narrow the gap it would have to mature beyond simple product catalogs and dropping merchandise into shopping carts.

Cloud Computing solutions have paved the way for the smaller businesses to begin leverage automation through affordable, pay-as-you-go solutions, but these solutions will also require help and guidance in terms of planning and blueprinting from experienced IT resources if their transformational characteristics are going to be fully realized and exploited.

The kind of experience that can be provided by the displaced senior IT types from the enterprise sector, if they can make the leap.

So my message to the IT community is that while the opportunity within the large enterprise space has substantially diminished in 2010, there is an equally sizeable opportunity for experienced IT resources willing to move down market and get acquainted with Cloud Computing.


Dave Rice CEO, TrueCloud

www.truecloud.com