What is IT?
The term information technology, otherwise known as IT, is used in several ways.
The IT industry is made up of the companies and individuals that provide computing products and services to other companies or individuals.
The mission of the IT industry in general is to
- provide technology solutions to solve business problems. To design, develop and maintain for example, the financial, healthcare and manufacturing systems of the world, military command and control systems, and desktop computing applications.
- provide technological innovation to enable opportunity. To design, develop and maintain for example, the continual advances in communications systems, or the latest in multimedia and entertainment systems, such as virtual reality or that cool new “experience” they call a website. It allows companies to “gain a competitive edge”.
Companies that are in the IT business, you know, high-tech, employ people to design, develop, deploy, maintain, support, administer and/or manage computing and communications systems. This ranges from desktop to mainframe systems and networks, radios to satellites, embedded systems, robotics, biotech, Internet technologies, e-commerce – in short, what’s considered high-tech stuff.
IT professionals may work in the IT department of larger companies, they may be the lone “computer person” in the small business sector, they may be the independent IT consultant. Programmers, systems analysts, computer scientists, database administrators, help desk support personnel, PC field technicians, interface designers, software testers, webmasters – these are the folks who make up the core IT workforce. There are also management, administration and support positions and careers that surround the business of IT.
In a nutshell, the IT industry includes all of the people and processes involved with designing, developing, deploying and maintaining computing hardware, software and communications systems.
