Keith Watanabe * NET 2.0

If you want to start off in IT right this minute, don't get into a Help Desk job.  It might be easy, but the future definitely is grim.  With computing moving towards the web, there's really little benefit for companies/enterprises in retaining the IT Help Desk for the long term.  The old complicated rollouts using CDs or network scripts are pointless, costly and inefficient compared to the distributed, redundant and more accessible version of the web.

The future of computing will be server based applications with dumb terminals connecting users to the web.  Again, Larry Ellison and Sun were completely correct in their assumption that the network is the computer.  However, as with any betting situation, correct timing is everything.  In this situation, I estimate we're about 5 years away from this move so maybe Larry can push his little network computer idea again in 2013.

That said, I look at desktop computing as being simply an outsourced function.  You just rent from Dell, HP/Compaq, IBM, etc.  But rather than having an overly complicated setup where you get your Exchange Servers, your virus protection software, your shared folders, your LDAP/Active Directory services, etc. you'll just be unified through a single entry point on Google, Yahoo, etc. with your applications built upon one of these massive computing clouds.  The hardware itself will be simply a screen, maybe a wireless interface to the network and some other interface for interacting with the web, kinda like the iPhone.  When you do your outsourcing, Dell or whoever will come down, give your terminal, setup your network with your provider, maybe even provide some customized desk space.  But the need for desktop software simply will vanish.

I kinda see things like the cable guy going to your house to install the cable box.  After that, everything is pretty much done and you just use your little pointing device to handle the rest.

As far as the customer service aspect of the IT Help Desk role, it probably will be more automated and integrated with some web CRM like PeopleSoft, or SAP (if they can scale down the cost).  The role of the IT Help Desk manager will simply be transformed into an account manager with the supporting service provider (which is why Google needs to start working on their enterprise support service section).

The nice thing about this scenario is that it'll weed out all the wannabe hobbyists who think that hooking their keyboard up, turning on their monitor or installing a game at home is REAL IT and move the aspects of computing back towards pure programming.  Then people who are truly knowledgeable about hardware, systems, etc. can focus their time on solving scalability, outage, etc. type of problems.

I'm not saying that these wannabe hobbyists should be discouraged from getting into IT.  I'm just saying that the competition will weed the ones who help stagnate the industry and motivate the ones who want to really understand the overall picture of IT by forcing them to constantly improve themselves.