in here.

I'm selling my Powermac G5 as I need more disk bays. I currently have 2 internal 1TB drives and 4 externals drives which is a mess. I need the new enclosure that has 4 internal bays.

But for a regular person without a storage addiction like myself, this Powermac is a powerful yet cheap entry to the Apple world or if you want to run a server (incl. Linux).
I'm adding a bonus: two *very* fast enterprise-class drives, Western Digital Raptor 10K RPM drives.

Dual 2.0 GHz, 1.5GB RAM, 2x 74GB (144GB) Raptor 10K
Full details in the eBay entry.

Just before joining Google, last June 2007, I had a heated discussion with some of my peers and team members at Merck Serono where I stated that I believed we would see the disappearance of standard IT as has been until now and companies would specialize and outsource as they have been doing for decades with all the other non-core business activities. It was not a popular opinion! ;-)

Just think: how many companies nowadays have trucks (replaced by shipping companies), bellboys (replaced my courier/messenger services), security guards (replaced by Securitas & alike), have printing presses, etc... This may sound odd but 50 years ago, companies had all of those internally. Now, even finance services are sometimes outsourced to specialized accounting companies.

So, why should IT be any different?!? Why does a newspaper, for instance, need to have their own sysadmin to install a fileserver and a mailserver? Why do they need their own mail server, actually? Why not split the techie stuff to a specialized company (not a consulting company, but a true technology company) that does nothing but that?

I had already mentioned this in a previous post at the occasion of an article that predicted the decrease of datacenters. But I had the opinion the argument did not extend far enough. (Datacenters are obvious due to the sheer entry-level necessary to have a proper datacenter. Not many small to medium companies can afford one. Those that think they do, have stupid leadership and run computers in a closet with no ventilation, until the day it all goes down in flames and the business with it. )

Now, an article in Network World finally puts it in the open: "IT department is dead".

Now what?

I think, the future will show we'll have true technology companies and then we'll have a few guys, in the so-called IT department, doing the customization of business applications and leading the interaction with the guys that actually run things. But don't call it a technology department: changing the default values on an SAP form(*) is as much technology as typing your username/password to login to GMail!

For those techies currently afraid of this move, just think: your employment will change but you'll be working for a true technology company directly. Your future company's customers will be your current company. And you'll be able to install Windows Server 2008 (in 2010) or Linux (version "really almost there") all day long, if that's your thing. Think Google, think Yahoo, think salesforce.com, think SAP Hosting, think Siebel CRM OnDemand, etc... These guys do nothing but technology all day.

So, techies will be fine. Better, in fact.

Good times ahead, indeed.

(*) Replace this with Siebel form, Oracle Financials, Word doc, etc... as you see fit.