Is the cloud
phasing out IT departments and, in turn, the CIO? For some of you that is truly a scary tale, but it’s not necessarily a Halloween trick.
In her blog for Celent, Catherine Stagg-Macey discusses what the CIO of a midtier property/casualty carrier in the UK believes could happen within 10 years. She writes:
“Against the backdrop of increasingly meaningful conversations about cloud, the idea of an IT organization being commoditized to the point of removing the necessity of an IT management structure suddenly seems real.
The examples suggest an inexorable move towards the commoditization of IT. It may well be too early to talk of the death of the CIO, but there is little doubt that the responsibilities of a CIO could shift towards supplier management as cloud offerings mature and become a viable solution to new outsourcing models.”
Going without a CIO seems pretty far-fetched these days, but I don’t want to be the one that says such an idea is unbelievable. Look at the way the role—and importance—of the CIO has changed from just 20 years ago.
But to say the cloud is going to completely change the way businesses adopt technology seems a little strong as well. There is no doubt that it has a lot of companies sitting up and taking notice, but who knows where technology will take us in 10 years. The cloud may be passé by then and we will be on to something no one even dreamed of in 2010. That’s the beauty of technology.