The history of IT could be seen as one long class struggle. The workers - led by their departmental heads - struggle to get their hands on the means of production, to which IT limits access. Their latest weapon in this conflict - software as a (web) service - could allow them to bypass IT. But is it a force for good?
We have been here before. Back in the days of the mainframe, staff revolted against the computer managers, who became arrogant and territorial. The new SaaS model is much like the old mainframe computing set-up, where everything - data storage, processing, software provisioning - was handled centrally, and users accessed their computer services through a dumb terminal wired to the mainframe.
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