In my last blog, I took a look at what the future may hold for the IT/Web industry.

Yes, a lot of conjecture, a dash of prejudice and all that, but still — I named names, I predicted failure for that which I would like to succeed (PHP, Cold Fusion).

Hell, I predicted I would be an anacronism shortly.

Which leads to a more thorough examination of the human toll this dot.com/bomb/bust/blot will take from this day on.

Interesting issue — yes, I’ve examined the losers and winners in the corporate sense, whose technology will win (in my opinion), but what will this mean for IT/Web workers?

Yes, interesting.

Some thoughts, and this is all slanted toward a IT/WEB point of view. I still think COBOL programmers will be needed in the near future; I’m not even going in that direction here. OK?

In the true American/capitalistic fashion, I will outline what I see in terms of winners and losers. One can substitute, respectively, in demand and less/not in demand for these titles, but get the drift…..

Winners:

• Competent techies skilled with the “winner” tools I outlined in my last blog (ASP, Java — not PHP, mySQL and so on) — The more experience in one area these individuals have, the better. The Web world is getting more and more like a real business (good and bad) now, and broad skillsets are nice but what businesses really want is someone who can rock their world in the one area they have advertised for: Java developer, ASP programmer, UNIX sys admin and so on. Anything else is gravy, but must have the goods on the primary job description. The halycon days of the early Web is gone. Get over it. Sorry, I scour Monster etc. every day, and what sticks out to me is the three things employees seem to be looking for in IT: DBAs (see below), MS product adherents (C++, ASP etc), Java. Period.
  
• Database administrators (in general) — Look at it this way: The sites that are making money offer products. Listed products are not stored on static pages like journalistic content could be; they are databased. The future of the Web is traditional business (yes, Web-i-fied). While static sites with company info and personal sites will not go away, most traffic — by an overwhelming percentage — will be on dynamic sites. Need a DBA. ‘Nuff said.
  
• XML experts — Note that I say experts. Not like some “Cold Fusion expert developers” I’ve dealt with. Like DBA’s, XML geeks will be in increasing demand. It make take about 3-5 years to get to critical mass there, but it is coming.
  
• Integration specialists — These are the consultants/FTEs like Don Drake who can leverage whatever tools (Perl and XML a good combo) to port legacy data/databases into a Web-enabled form. This is a very big deal. Similarly, the ability to port one type of “new” system to another “new” system. Real-time updates will become vital, and will require databases and processes to connect dissimilar sources. Difficult but the payoff is high. So it will happen.
  
• MBAs — I wish I could say this was untrue, or — at least — say that only the MBAs that “get it” (say, Mary Butler, Bill Swislow) will endure — but I don’t think this is true. What is true? THE WEB IS ABOUT BUSINESS. Look at the “B” in MBA. Doesn’t matter if they get it, doesn’t matter if they care. They know business. Sad, true, necessary, unfortunate. All of the preceeding. Still, the Web is about business. While those who do “get it” may do better — depending on the environment — it really doesn’t matter. If the clueless MBA knows a few buzzwords: CRM, impressions, Oracle, ASP blah blah — that will sell the clueless above. *sigh*
  
• Security specialists — No, not there yet. Will be soon. Why? Because the WEB IS ABOUT BUSINESS. Lose a customer and lose money. That is not acceptable to a company (losing customer…who cares? losing money, however…fix!). This will really ripen as more highly-publicized accounts hit the media. Sure, a company can — and will — lose a customer and dollars here and there because of security, but if it is publicized, that’s a nightmare that most companies don’t want to even think about. Costly. As more and more business moves onto the Web, spending $$ for security personnel will increase proportionaly (actually, probably more quickly). I personally think the .NET initiative will fuel a lot of this security upgrade, especially when and if Hailstorm comes to fruition.
  

Losers:

• Those with breadth of skills, not depth — Yes, this includes me. Damn. Fun to chat over a beer or two about experience with Gopher and Archie and Veronica…but does that have any business use? Nope.
  
• Open-source isolationists — Yes, there are enormous benefits to using only open-source software. There is at least ONE compelling reason to not use open-source software: Every clueless CEO has heard of Microsoft and knows they have a support network; he has never heard of KDE, Mandrake, NuSphere and so on. The Web is business now (repeat after me, the Web is business now….the Web is business now…). Get it?
  
• Innovators — There will be many exceptions to this rule, but for the most part those that innovate outside a large company have one of three futures:
  

  • Bankruptcy
    
  • Assimilation into a larger company (with a marketing department..see MS…)
    
  • Niche market marginallity (is that a word?)
    

  Sorry to be a pessimist, but that’s life. In the early days a Real Player was cool; now THE WEB IS BUSINESS. Standards.
  

• Those that get it but don’t get business — These folks (I count myself among this group) will not be, in Nikita Khrushchev’s words, “crushed” — but I/we/they will be marginalized. Webmonkey.com exists today. No one reads it. Learn that lesson.
  

Please note that these winners and losers are generalizations. Yes, there will be moronic Java programmers that go hungry and psychology majors heading e-commerce sites for Fortune 100 companies. Whatever. I’ve tried to identify trends, not one-to-one relationships. Do I really have to say that????

And note that I’m not necessarily happy about all this. This is a report/opinion/projection. It’s not a wish list…..