FREE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY BLOG FOR PROFESSIONALS

In May, the United States hit a 14.7 percent unemployment rate and more than 20 million jobs lost since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is the highest level of job loss to hit the U.S. since the Great Depression. While things have improved since then, with the Bureau of Labor Statistics reporting an unemployment rate of 7.9 percent for September 2020, the economy remains in an uncertain position. While many industries have been hit hard by the COVID crisis, from airlines to restaurants to live music venues, the pandemic and its economic reverberations have touched every business in… [Continue Reading] from BetaNews https://ift.tt/388C1ti via IFTTT

As of last year, there were 12.1 million tech workers in the United States, according to TechRepublic. Throughout the 2010s, the tech sector workforce expanded by 23 percent with no significant dips or net job losses beyond the Great Recession early in the decade. While these numbers have declined due to the COVID-19 pandemic -- the tech sector lost a record 112,000 jobs in April -- the tech industry is still growing and will likely continue to grow as the economy reboots and the world moves toward a new normal. Here are three of the biggest challenges and opportunities that… [Continue Reading] from BetaNews https://ift.tt/31fwQUO via IFTTT

Yesterday, I predicted the demise of conventional IT caused by the wide adoption of SD-WAN and SASE, accelerated by the emergency demands of everyone working from home. Now that Congress has passed a $2.2 trillion COVID-19 bail-out, let’s throw-in the implications of that legislation to see what effect it is all likely to have on what used to be IT. The short version is to expect an even bigger bloodbath as IT employees at all levels are let go forever. Please understand that some version of this bloodbath was going to happen anyway. What matters right now is how we… [Continue Reading] from BetaNews https://ift.tt/33ZRM1w via IFTTT

IT -- Information Technology -- grew out of something we called MIS -- Management Information Systems -- but both meant a kid in a white shirt who brought you a new keyboard when yours broke. Well, the kid is now gone, sent home with everyone else, and that kid isn’t coming back… ever. IT is near death, fading by the day. But don’t blame COVID-19 because the death of IT was inevitable. This novel coronavirus just made it happen a little quicker. I mentioned the switch from MIS to IT because that name change presaged the events I am describing… [Continue Reading] from BetaNews https://ift.tt/2xBc19s via IFTTT

Information technology professionals know how to adapt to constant change. Yet our laser focus on immediate details means we can lose sight of the big picture and miss an opportunity to stay ahead of the curve. If you read the 2020 State of the Edge report, the very first line may cure that ill: We stand on the precipice of a profound re-architecting of the Internet… What this report calls the "Third Act of the Internet" has begun. It includes 5G wireless, network virtualizations and new generations of the cloud and CDNs, to name just a few of the network… [Continue Reading] from BetaNews https://ift.tt/37z8whb via IFTTT