Hi,
Assisting in choosing the RIGHT technology/area to work upon might be a bit tricky for the rest of us as you know where you stand today and where you would like to go tomorrow. Usually, there are 2 broad categories of people: generalists and specialists. Depending upon how you classify yourself now and wish to classify later will impact your decision.
From a technological perspective, lets look at some of the opportunities that exist:
1. EP, KM & C: If you like to focus on web-based applications, collaboration and knowledge management, this is a good choice. You will need some competence in JAVA though.
2. XI: You are middleware person and like EAI/BPM project? If yes, XI is the way to go. Again, JAVA will greatly help in this as well.
3. BI: You like to focus on analysis, trends, key performance indicators, etc? BI will help.
4. MI: You like to play around with mobile devices? This is the way to go.
Each and everyone of these fields are and will be in demand. It is your choice to select one.
If none of these sound interesting, well then prehaps you should focus in the Business Suite Applications like CRM, SRM, IS Solutions, etc.
Just to give you some idea of the market trends, the Economist Intelligence Unit published a report last year in IT spending trends in the UK. The study was sponsored by SAP. According to it, two highest priority areas of organizations are:
1. Consolidation of IT landscapes (XI/NetWeaver)
2. Generating more business from existing customers (CRM/BI)
In fact, accrording to the study released by Yankee Group, in 2002, organizations in the telecom sector spent around $32 B out of which $16 B was spent on integration. You can search the web for further research as well to identify various trends.
Hope this helps.
Regards
Bluesky
