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This is pretty much the most laid back job I have doing help desk work.
Will it still be here 10 or 30 years from now?
How viable is an IT Help Desk or Computer Support Specialist?
Those interested would be better off focusing on the hardware aspects. Those kinds of jobs will also be undercut over time (by better and more integrated design, perhaps), but in the end some users will still need help to plug Cord A into Socket B.
But sadly, other than business use (etc)---and even then I see a big decline--- I see desktops going away for the average consumer; they are content with the vastly inferior performance of equal price point tablets and laptops because they are "portable".
Not to completely knock tablets and laptops, portability is nice feature- vacations, lunch out of the office, etc. But nothing beats being able to crank open 20-30 programs, leave the machine running without having to save battery on sleep mode, grind through a raw to mp4 transcode in a few minutes, scroll through a massive spreadsheet on a 24" monitor, run a billion- time step MD simulation, etc........
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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Quote:
Originally Posted by LeaderOCola
Software(app) support? Sure
But sadly, other than business use (etc)---and even then I see a big decline--- I see desktops going away for the average consumer; they are content with the vastly inferior performance of equal price point tablets and laptops because they are "portable".
Not to completely knock tablets and laptops, portability is nice feature- vacations, lunch out of the office, etc. But nothing beats being able to crank open 20-30 programs, leave the machine running without having to save battery on sleep mode, grind through a raw to mp4 transcode in a few minutes, scroll through a massive spreadsheet on a 24" monitor, run a billion- time step MD simulation, etc........
In our company of about 2,000 employees, the trend is to use tablets as the main desktop device. It allows for access to programs at meetings, is easier to take home for managers or those on call, and runs all of the same software including VPN. Even our developers are using tablets now. Battery charging is not an issue, since we have docking stations. For my Surface Pro I have dual 24" monitors at my desk, and have found it to be faster processing large files than the previous machine, a Dell laptop. I haven't seen a "tower" here in a few years. As for the desktop support people, we have a couple at each of our two major locations. Their duties are largely limited to setting up new machines when refreshed, and moving them when someone changes their work location.
But sadly, other than business use (etc)---and even then I see a big decline--- I see desktops going away for the average consumer; they are content with the vastly inferior performance of equal price point tablets and laptops because they are "portable".
Not to completely knock tablets and laptops, portability is nice feature- vacations, lunch out of the office, etc. But nothing beats being able to crank open 20-30 programs, leave the machine running without having to save battery on sleep mode, grind through a raw to mp4 transcode in a few minutes, scroll through a massive spreadsheet on a 24" monitor, run a billion- time step MD simulation, etc........
But the average worker does none of that. Essentially everything I do at work is handled in a cloud application. I have so many meetings my desk is little more than a coat hanger. If I need a larger screen, there is a 26 inch one at my desk. 90% of the things I do do not need more processing power than a tablet. On the ocassion I need to deal with larger spreadsheets, the RAM has been maxed out on my laptop.
Haven't had a desktop at work in a decade!
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