IT Trends - laptops, wireless and skills

Gartner have identified six (more?) IT trends that will have significant impact on people, business and the IT industry. To be honest three trends caught my attention:

• By 2008, 10 percent of companies will require employee-purchased notebooks.
• By 2010, 30 percent of U.S. homes will use only cellular or Internet telephony.
• The job market for IT specialists will shrink 40 percent by 2010.

The first two points just reinforce some of the issues that many others, including myself (e.g. The Intranet Imperative and In The Know And On the Move), have been raising about the impact of consumer driven innovation on business IT. Of course, its going to be interesting to see how IT departments in large organisations deal with the move from SOEs to wireless and diverse operating environments (WDOEs?). Or is it just easier to go thin-client?

However there is an interesting local link in respect to the last point as a group of local business representatives recently had a meeting to discuss the future IT skills requirements of Australian industry. Victoria Police chief information officer Valda Berzins apparently commented that despite the public perception of there being no jobs in IT, there are growing opportunities in Australia for people with technical and business IT skills.

Tags: Gartner, technology in the workplace