However, it will change them. The job will still require a good knowledge of IT infrastructure, but the job will be more about vendor management than hands on experience.
Case in point ... I outsource my domain hosting. After poor customer service and increasing outages, I recently transferred the domain to a new host. Most of it went fine but we ran into a SMTP glitch. Because I have a working knowledge of the infrastructure and was able to do some focused tests from my end and provide relevant information, the new vendor was able to identify not only that it was their issue, but how to solve it within a couple hours versus many days if they had had to prompt me on what kinds of tests I should do and give them meaningful results.
Cloud computing is an increasingly important reality for small and medium business but will it ever be able to totally replace traditional on-premise applications?
That’s the subject of ZDNet’s Great Debate this week with Christopher Dawson and Heather Clancy taking opposite sides on a topic that many SMBs have probably already considered.
Dawson claims that SMB decision-markers are too busy to pay as close attention as they should to their business technology. He says the cloud takes away the worry so owners and managers can spend more time actually thinking about their business.
On the other side is Clancy who says IT actually becomes more important to small and medium businesses in a cloud environment. She feels that cloud computing requires strong supervision to provide both business and technical oversight.
What do you think?
Be sure to check out this week’s Great Debate on ZDNet.
