I was going to write an article about how IT departments need to change and embrace cloud, sadly I accidentally deleted the post, then Google announced chromebooks.
Chromebooks
Chromebooks are easily managed estates of laptops, Googles dream being that everything runs through a browsers.
Pros: On the face of it they seem very easy to manage
Cons: Companies still run quite a few non-browser based applications, d I’m sure these could be run through a terminal window on the chromebook..
IT Managers
From experience over the last four years, I’ve found that there are two breeds of IT manager, these are extreme poles so there is a happy medium here as well..
Type A
-Focussed on delivering new technology to the business, software..
-Sees commodity IT as a pain and risk
Type B
-Majority of time is spent maintaining desktops, network, file server, email & other systems
-Very averse to any thing new
Accenture ran a study last week which showed that Cloud is being driven not by IT but by management, the promise of lower cost and more flexible IT is very appealing.
Given that IT historically IT has always demanded bigger budgets to deliver innovation within business, why the sudden shyness to cloud, undoubtedly the concern around potentially lower headcounts.
Conclusion
So what does all this mean? Well a whole lot of change if Google gets its way, historically they’ve done ok, they’re Google Apps products are pretty punchy and based on the rate of new features they release their Chromebooks could do pretty well but this will be a long play.
Google are also furiously hiring, LinkedIn brings up 140 open positions with a very clear, we want to hire lots of people strategy vs. the likes of Microsoft who seem to have flattened out.
What does it mean for our IT manager, the ‘Type A’ is pretty safe they now potentially will have another tool in their armory to help innovate further. Our ‘Type B’ really needs to prove their worth and transform their role into an enabler and aid to the business.
If I was hiring an IT manager today I would definitely want some cloud experience. A quick look at the IT job boards shows that not everyone feels the same way with only a handful ‘IT Manager’ roles with the the keyword Cloud’.
One thing is sure, change and disruption is going to start kicking around very soon..
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