> … perhaps because it is less costly and will lead to better capabilities, more reliability, less complexity than burying it under 18 layers of apis, containers, and virtual machines.
Over the years, I’ve come to suspect that maybe the technology is less of a differentiator in the overall effectiveness of a company’s IT environment than the people running it.
And with IT staffing supply having lagged behind demand (as also evidenced by relatively high salaries in IT vs many other professions), you could easily argue that it was (still is?) historically more difficult to hire good IT people than in many other professions.
And arguably that’s making outsourcing of IT needs relatively more attractive than outsourcing of other business functions where reasonably competent leadership and staffing is easier to come by.
And arguably, capturing many of the benefits of Open Source require more IT competency than using off the shelf mainstream commercial software. If I’m using the same crap that everyone of my competitors is using, none of us win or lose on that. But when using Open Source, I’m more likely to depend on the quality of my IT leadership and staff to outcompete my competitors. And unless a CEO is quite IT literate, s/he probably doesn’t want that additional headache of becoming good at figuring out how to hire good IT leadership.
So I’d hazard a guess, that insourcing and the use of Open Source will become more attractive for many corporations only if/when IT salaries drop more in line with other professions.
