Hadoop, SharePoint, vSphere, and the iPad point to intriguing possibilities for tech (2024)

Even for tech veterans, several new developments indicate exciting directions for IT

Dear Bob …

I don’t really need advice so much as a perspective. I’ve been in IT for more than 30 years, which makes me a codger is some circles. I try to keep up to date and to stay interested in the latest and greatest, but it’s getting harder. The new stuff seems to be increasingly like the old stuff.

[ Also on InfoWorld: Find out how to move beyond tech’s buzzwords and catchphrases in 2011 in “The straight talk on IT’s new directions.” | Keep up on career advice with Bob Lewis’ Advice Line newsletter. ]

Is it just me, or has IT run out of serious innovation?

– Getting old

Dear Aging …

Time for my favorite answer: It depends.

There’s a lot going on that’s new and genuinely interesting — so much so that I can’t even begin to keep track of it all anymore. For example:

• I have only the most superficial knowledge of Hadoop and could be way off base when I say it looks like a very promising approach to managing massive amounts of data.
• With SharePoint and its integration with its office suite, Microsoft (yes, Microsoft!) is seriously innovating in the unstructured data management space. We still need a Codd and Date for unstructured data. Microsoft has to relearn its ability to present itself — have you ever seen a worse job of explaining a product? — but the tools have become very interesting.
• After decades of server-centric thinking, Microsoft and VMware are making local computing interesting again. Microsoft’s cloud strategy is all about extending personal computing into the cloud without moving personal computing with it. VMware’s vSphere, which virtualizes the desktop with fully synchronized local and server-based processing modes, makes it possible to work in the same virtual environment from multiple devices without a hopeless jumble.
• Development tools are a problem, which is to say we’re living in very interesting times. Application development is surrounded by insurmountable opportunity in the form of a wide variety of platforms. Many can do a very credible job of building applications so big and important that they’re nearly certain to outlive the development kit used to build them. It’s a headache, but it’s genuinely interesting.
• Social media — yes, it’s important. No, I don’t have anything new and interesting to say about it, except this: Enterprises who figure out the internal version are going to finally crack the knowledge management nut that’s frustrated so many organizations for so many years. Until now, knowledge management has meant volunteering personal time to perform dreary tasks that benefit other people. Social media could change that entirely, turning knowledge management into online communities — if businesses are wise enough to understand that social media have been successful to the extent they’re fun.
• Most important of all, IT’s boundary is in the process of changing. IT’s job used to be done when it delivered the software. Now, IT’s job is to collaborate with the rest of the business in designing, planning, and achieving business change.

That’s just a starter list. You’ll notice I didn’t specifically include the cloud in it. That’s because most of what’s being touted about the cloud is the opposite of new and interesting. It’s being positioned as the same old stuff, not much different from a classic data center outsource, only virtualized and commoditized. The cloud could become interesting, and I hope its proponents decide to make it so.

Here’s what hasn’t changed in IT:

• IT’s obsession with process continues unabated, to its detriment, especially in the application development space. The agile family of methodologies was supposed to separate processes from development, refocusing it as a craft based on strong, trust-based relationships between developers and end-users driven by high levels of informal interaction. However, I hear about how it’s being taught as a series of steps you have to follow, not as a style of relationship management.
• IT operations has the same mission statement as always: Be invisible. That means certain disciplines and technologies are as essential as ever: software quality assurance, change control (ITIL calls it “change management“), systems monitoring and management, and all the other bits and pieces of making sure everything is on when it’s supposed to be on.
• A clean, well-engineered technical architecture is, if anything, even more important than before. Especially now, when IT is expected to deliver the same applications just about anywhere and on a variety of target platforms, any messiness will be subject to polynomial explosion.
• As always, excellent leadership and management is essential to IT’s success. In particular, excellent leadership and management means …
• As always, attracting, recruiting, retaining, and promoting the best talent possible is essential to IT’s success as well.

A lot of the fundamentals are very familiar, whether or not someone has attached a new name to the same old idea. The standards of basic professionalism are pretty much what they’ve always been.

If all you see is the same old same old, I’m concerned you might be like a batch Cobol programmers I knew when interactive computing was first gaining interest in the enterprise. They refused to see that anything had changed and eventually had to find jobs outside IT because they were no longer qualified for the essential jobs inside IT.

There’s plenty that’s new, interesting, and exciting. Figuring out what it all means? That’s the most intriguing and challenging part.

– Bob

This story, “Hadoop, SharePoint, vSphere, and the iPad point to intriguing possibilities for tech,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Read more of Bob Lewis’s Advice Line blog on InfoWorld.com.