Der Informationssektor in Österreich

Mikroökonornische Aus$irkungen neuer Inforrnationstechnologien t22
(ir) Even though it is perfectly true that standard softr.vare packages har,e r.'astly
improved and diffr.rsed very widely. the needs, the technology and the or-
ganisation of firms are changing all the time and will continue to do so. To
achieve a good'match'between technology. organisation and software is
not a matter of static 'maintenance'
but a creative activit_v which will con-
tinue lo make nerv demands on sollware skills Horvever. it is true that the
balance of employment gromh will probably shift from 'programmers'
ro
'systems
design' or even to managers and engineers who may not be desig-
nated as'software' people at all.
(iii) N'tost large organisations have rnherited a n)ixture of har-dware and soft\\are
from different suppliers. PCs and portables have prolilerated at the fringes
and their numbers are now very great. However, the need remains for cli-
ent-server networks and for many other networks based on reliable secure
communication Despite the spread of 'open systems' much effort for the
fbreseeable {irture will continue to go into 'middlervare',
r.e. softrvare ap-
propriate to organisations operating a variety of different equipment, much
of which cannot simply be scrapped despite the high rate of technical
change.
(ir) Paral)el processing, virtuai reaiitl, and multi-media are a)l likely to erperi-
ence extraordinarily rapid growth in the next decade and all will make hr.lge
new demands on software applications skills.
(v) The small-scale redundancy which has been experienced, especially in the
Llnited Kingdom and the United States is nainlv associared with tenrporary
phenomena such as delence business contraction, sr.vrtch from old pro-
gramming languages, such as COBOL, to the newer programming lan-
guages such as C and to the effects of the recession.
(vi) As already indicated in the introductton to this section. there is a vast new
area of potential employment grou.lh associated with the infrastructural in-
vestment in cable and both wrred and wireless telecomrnunications. which is
taking off in the United States, Europe and Japan This growth will be in
manv new interactive services to houselnld.s as well as to business. Part of
it will initiallv be 'edu-tainment'
. Computer gantes have probably been the
lastest growing area of ICT activities in the past few Vears and compantes
such as NINTENDO and SEGA have experienced astonishing growth even
for ICT comoanies. This has shown that there is an enormous world-wide
demand from children (and adultsl for this type of product - home enter-
tainment linking new software products with TV and PCs in an interactive