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Cornered! 'Visual Networking' - the killer app threatened by the skills shortage
Cornered! 'Visual Networking' - the killer app threatened by the skills shortage | 'Visual Networking' - the killer app threatened by the skills shortage |
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| Written by Stuart Corner | |
| Wednesday, 09 January 2008 | |
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Page 2 of 3 He identifies three key issues: ease of use, mobility and quality: "Vision is the most highly developed of the human senses, so people are even more sensitive to flaws in video images than, say, the sound of a telephone conversation. The rapid growth of high-definition television and flat screen TV sales illustrates that if people have a choice, they will go for higher quality video. Whatever you do, you need to take care of your video as it travels over a network so it arrives as crystal-clear as possible." However one of the biggest barriers to these monumental changes may be well-beyond the ability of even a company of Cisco's size to surmount: a shortage of people with the skills needed to build and operate the networks of the future that are able to consistently meed the demands of video. In late 2007 Cisco Australia briefed journalists to try and raise awareness of what the company sees as a major global issue, and provide some details of its own contribution to addressing the shortage. Kevin Bloch, Cisco's director advanced technologies and engineering, pointed out that, video and its demands aside, the number of networked devices on the planet is growing exponentially: there are some 300 million PCs, some three billion cellphones and upwards of a trillion RFID devices and sensors. "Everything has got some intelligence on it connecting it through a network of some sort to something else and the network is becoming exponentially more important as we move forward. Cisco commissioned IDC to do a study across APAC. It came up with a demand for networking skills in 2007 of close to 55,000 new positions but an eight percent shortfall, to leave a skills gap of 6000. However on further refinement, IDC identified demand for 26,500 advanced networking skills and that most of the shortfall, some 4000 people, was in this area. |
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