199Four – Notre Dame of Greater Manila

Forwarded email:

If pay rate for a skill is any indication of its
value, there are some IT skills that look to be well
on their way to extinction. A recent piece from
Networkworld listed the five high-tech skills that
don’t command the pay that they once did:

1. Plain old HTML

The article says that the demand for skills in HTML
programming is declining as companies start to embrace
Web 2.0 technologies.

2. Legacy programming languages

Skills centered around programming languages such as
Cobol, Fortran, PowerBuilder, and more, don’t rate as
highly as they once did. In fact, the article quotes
recent research by Foote Partners IT which revealed
that Cobol, PowerBuilder, and Jini noncertified skills
were among the lowest-paying skills in the second half
of 2007.

3. NetWare

Research quoted in the article seems to bear out that
Windows Server and Linux skills have either replaced,
or are replacing, NetWare skills in terms of demand.

4. Non-IP network

IP and Internet skills have usurped non-IP network
expertise.

5. PC tech support

According to the article:

CompTIA surveyed 3,578 IT hiring managers to learn
which skills would grow in importance over time and
the industry organization found: “The skill area
expected to decline the most in importance is
hardware.”

Foote Partners’ research separately showed an 11.1%
decline in pay over the last six months of 2007 for
ITIL skills, which are often put in place to
streamline IT service management and help desk
efforts.

Do you agree or disagree?