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| CURRENT SECTION :: Market Reports | UK's most visited IT Contractor Site - 250k unique visitors March 2008 |
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This has not been a good week for WebAlertz/moreJobz.com. We had a major server failure with our ISP and have been offline for three days. It’s nothing we can do anything about, but that’s no excuse. So, for those of you who have been using moreJobz.com, please accept our apologies. For those of you who work in support, you have my sympathy. There’s nothing worse than having to be the front line (i.e. answering the phone) when management are acting like – well, I’m not allowed to say the word, but perhaps I’ll get away with “front bottoms” and refusing to take control. So this is just to let you know that moreJobz hasn’t gone bust or anything and our usual fantastic service will be resumed as soon as the German company that runs our servers gets its act into place. Oh well, we beat them in the world cup. Oh – and 5-1 on their home ground… Anyway, due to this disaster, I won’t be able to give actual statistics about the job market this week. Instead I will be talking about the field of VB and how the .NET world has affected contractors’ attitudes to contract work. The first thing that has become noticeable is that because the market has become more buoyant, VB developers are getting fussier about their interests. People who dug in during the lean times and would put up with using VB5 or whatever are now refusing to look at anything that doesn’t have “.net” at the end of it. It reminds me of a time in the past when some entrepreneur came up with the fantastic idea of selling Mexican piss (otherwise known as Sol) by sticking a slice of lime in the bottle and all the yuppies refused to drink anything that lacked the slice of lime… The Mexicans must have been laughing their heads off. First they sell us this beer that couldn’t even get a slug drunk and then they get us to drink slammers. For those of you who are of a temperate nature, let me explain a Tequila slammer. First you lick the top of your thumb and forefinger. Then you sprinkle salt on the moistened area. Then you are proffered a shot of tequila, usually by some tasty bint in miniscule clothing. So you lick the salt, knock back the shot of tequila (which may as well be called paraffin), then bite on a quarter of lime to block the flavour of what you’ve just consumed. Then you do something else. I think that by the time I’ve got to that stage I’ve forgotten what order to do things in. All I remember is the mortgage payments I have to sign for at the end of the night. But back to .net. Maybe it is a good idea. And if it ups your contract rate, who’s going to complain? Yes, I know who’s going to complain. All those people who whinge about Microsoft products and how rubbish they are. I bet if a product these people created suddenly made them a multi-billionaire no matter how crap it was they’d stay schtumm and be happy with the millions they were making. Good or bad, Microsoft has homogenised the planet in the way that nothing else ever has. Having known what it’s like to work with devices and CP/M in the past, I have few complaints. Unix/Linux? Try giving that to an end user and see how well they get on without support or if they’re not IT literate. Anyway, back to VB. On the good side, it appears that VB contracts are becoming more attractive again. Rates are going up, as are requirements, and agents seem to be more proactive. In other words, they’re calling the contractors rather than the other way around. I think it’s been two or three years since this has happened so it’s a nice feeling. Also, with the re-emergence of web-based companies, VB in its various forms is an attractive – and fast – way to get your site going if you’re trying to get your own web business going. However, it’s worth getting asp.net under your belt if you’re looking at the web. It’s not that far from vb.net and it will look good on your CV. It’s also worth investigating areas like C#, although they’ve yet to really catch on. So, that’s it for this week. Please accept my apologies for not being able to give a real market breakdown, but breakdown is not a word I want to hear right now. Normal service will be resumed as quickly as possible… Best wishes, Alan Potter alan.potter@webalertz.com Jul 15, 2004 Email this article Printer friendly page Previous Page
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