The Old Joel on Software Forum: Part 3 (of 5)

Jolly News

http://www.silicon.com/news/500020-500001/1/6270.html?nl=d20031006

Such a jolly piece for Monday, that there's no likely upturn for IT contracting until 2006 and that not only is this a low in a cycle but a high in terms of industry critical mass.

Simon Lucy
Monday, October 6, 2003

So how come my phone keeps ringing?

Philo

Philo
Monday, October 6, 2003

It's your mother ;)

jan Derk
Monday, October 6, 2003

He doesn't pick up, so it must be his mother-in-law.

Johnny Bravo
Monday, October 6, 2003

Well it might be that its skewed to the UK as well.

I don't necessarily believe it myself.

Simon Lucy
Monday, October 6, 2003

> "In general terms, downward pressure on salaries will continue as IT skills lose their premium, and competition from offshore IT services firms depresses wages," the report said.

> A separate report by management consultancy Adventus claims a lack of appropriately skilled IT staff is the single biggest factor behind why so many major projects fail.

Hmm...

Len Holgate (www.lenholgate.com)
Tuesday, October 7, 2003

So... on the one hand, IT skills lose their premium, which depresses wages. On the other hand, projects fail because of a lack of skilled IT staff.

Depressingly, not the contradiction it seems to be at first glance.

They want IT staff, just not skilled ones. Here or anywhere.

Fernanda Stickpot
Tuesday, October 7, 2003

[silicon.com article >] "... 'next big thing' technology to drive demand..."

We can't always expect IT to drive demand. It's far more healthy (and natural) over time for us in the IT industry to expect (non-IT) client needs to drive demand. IT is only a means to an end.

Next big thing?

Well, within a week or so, there will most likely be two countries in the world with the capability to send humans into space (hint: the USA won't be one of them):

http://www.spacedaily.com/2003/031007104643.feypokn6.html

So we here in the USA are sleeping if we don't see that we're in the midst of a new space race. Hopefully a new suborbital industry will be sparked by the X Prize within the next couple of years:

http://www.xprize.org

Also, hopefully the OSP will be the last low Earth orbit (LEO) vehicle that the USA taxpayers will be asked to fund:

http://www.ospnews.com

The private sector should follow up X Prize success with a push to take over the LEO industry within the next 15-20 years. NASA could then focus its limited resources on deeper horizons that aren't yet commercially viable.

Ahh... a quickly expanding space industry sans gov't bureaucracy. Now that's some IT work I could get used to.

If we want a "next big thing", we've got to get off our complacent duffs, and start dreaming big again.

Dave Smith
Tuesday, October 7, 2003

Plastics.

Philo
Wednesday, October 8, 2003