Re: broad discussion about future market direction for DBA

17 Nov 2002 18:05:37 -0800, grjohnson said (and I quote):
> I have to agree with Richard regarding the Employment outlook in
> Australia. There is a small amount of Perm and Contract work here in
> OZ, and most people are hesitant to move jobs with the state of the
> industry.

Yip, I'd say the same. Still, mind you: if there is one thing the 80's and 90's showed the entire industry is that long-term full-time employment just doesn't exist. When you least expect it, someone will stuff it up and "downsizing" will strike again...

Personally, I don't think "10 years in-house" and other things like that are worth squat, but that's probably just me.

> Although, here in Brisbane, I've not seen an Oracle DBA
> position advertised for 1.5 months.

Same in Sydney. You get the occasional 3 month assignment and that's it. I stress the word 'occasional'...

> time the industry will be booming again. Mind you, we are finding an
> increasing trend of Australian Companies (and Govt. Departments)
> outsourcing IT work internationally, could Australian IT go the way of
> the Australian Textille industry?

That trend has been there for ages. Ie, it's nothing really new. All it means is that you have to become more flexible in work arrangements and take it to the people that are taking away your job. It's possible, believe me. Not easy, but possible.
I don't think IT will go the way of Textile stuff. I can't explain the reasons why as they imply some of the stuff I'm doing, but I really don't see it happening.

>
> Anyway, so what's the future of Oracle, XML is the big one and is
> definatly where Oracle is trying to move toward. And there is still
> the requirement of storing the data efficiently and querying the data
> quickly.

Well, I tend to be a little more optimistic here. Let's not forget that even after the latest round of acronym-madness (Damn it: only this industry would re-label "accounts receivable" as CRM!), the bottom line is that business still needs a receivable and a payable system.

Be it CRM or SRM or any other crap acronym that someone wants to use to re-invent the wheel, bottom line is: someone has to run the finance side.

So, there will always be a need for some database related work associated with this. Be it half-XML or just pure data storage technology, it'll still be needed. Sure, not in the same scale as before.

Let's not forget that before the GST and Y2K demand started we were in another recession here. It was as bad as this one, and the budgets now haven't dropped anywhere near what they did back then. Things are not as bad as they could be and not everyone has yet upgraded to an Intranetbased  architecture. No matter how much the J2EE mob might want us to believe.

>
> I'll never know all things Oracle, but I can learn them when it's
> required, which makes me think, maybe it may be worthwhile learning
> about Peoplesoft or some other software product. One more finger in
> the pie can't hurt can it?

Good idea.
I rather prefer Richard's guitar option. Mine is not music related, but it's developing all the time. Another 10 years or so and I can kiss IT goodbye. Probably won't anyway, because it will still pay good. But I won't be as dependent on it then.

Need to put the kids through school in the meantime. Then I can do something else.

-- 
Cheers
Nuno Souto
nsouto_at_optusnet.com.au.nospam