ASSERTION: CENTRALIZED IT DEPARTMENTS WILL BECOME UNSUSTAINABLE

Syllabus: A transition, already apparent in the 1990s, has been the distribution of some central IT departments into their client organizations. This development is a reflection of the changing balance between specific IT knowledge and the domain knowledge necessary to create usable information systems. The essential role of domain knowledge can only be expected to increase. As developers become typed by their mastery of a given business domain, it is natural for them to become more strongly associated with that domain, rather than central IT. As developers understanding of the domain becomes an ever more important asset of that domain, it is natural enough for the business area to lay claim to these developers.

-- Anonymous, October 22, 1999

Answers

Dissenting Opinion: It seems to me that there has been a swing from centralized to decentralized IT. However, the move to the e-Business paradigm has created the need for "one-stop shopping". Companies are now attempting to build systems with an integrated view of their products and customers, something that is extremely difficult in a totally decentralized IT environment.

In the last decade as well, there is has been a distinct pull-back from client-server as the answer to all problems. Without dwelling on the problems with handling transactions, what most of my clients have found, along with the industry, is that it is much easier to distribute processes than it is data. My guess is that IT will continue to oscillate between the two extremes as far into the future as we can see.

-- Anonymous, November 19, 1999