The InSource Group, an IT staffing and recruiting company in Dallas, Tx., is celebrating the 20th year in business and highlights how the technology industry has changed over the last two decades.

1. Dallas IT Recruiters Celebrates 20 Years
A Review of Changes in Technology Industry
The technology industry has changed dramatically since The InSource Group was
founded in 1992 on the principle of providing outstanding IT recruiting services in
Dallas, Tx. We thought it would be fun to highlight just a few of the many changes in the
technology industry which have occurred over the last two decades.
The 1990s saw a tremendous shift in how software was developed. Early on, if you were
an Assembler, RPGII, RPGIII, PL/1 or COBOL developer, you were in high demand
during the early 90s. 4GL programming languages such as PowerBuilder and Delphi
were just beginning to gain acceptance, with PowerBuilder professionals experiencing a
hot ride for several years.
Remember the UNIX vs. DEC/ VAX wars being waged for the engineering and scientific
community in the early 1990’s? Heterogeneous networks became the buzz words for
connecting different hardware platforms to a common network with a standardized
communication protocol. IBM was the undisputed hardware leader with its mainframe
and mid-range AS/400 lines, while a host of competitors were vying for left over market
share. Microsoft began its real run at the business enterprise (first with Windows 95
recommended to run on 8 megabits of memory, AND the OS upgrade still being shipped
on floppy discs!) and quickly became an established part of the rapidly emerging client-
server architecture. By the way, what ever happened to the OS/2, CP/M and PICK
operating systems?
Software development was primarily performed in a structured or iterative methodology,
while object oriented programming was finally gaining acceptance beginning with client
server based application architectures. FORTRAN, C and Assembly were still the
dominant languages used by the technical community, although C++ was actually
invented around 1980. While until 1995, Java was still just a slang word for coffee.
What about those hardware vendors from the 90’s? Which of these do you remember:
Stratus, Prime, Tandem, DEC, Data General, Honeywell, Computervision, Silicon
Graphics (SGI), Wang Computers, Cray, SUN Microsystems, Convex or Pyramid
Technology? Most are out of business or absorbed by the few remaining dominant
hardware vendors.
With the increased acceptance of C++, Visual C++, along with Java’s introduction in
1995, object oriented development professionals were in high demand. If you were one of
the early developers who jumped on the OO development band wagon, the mid and late
90’s were very good to you.
The new millennium brought many more changes. How technology was being used
seemed to change as much as the technology itself.

2. Who can forget the Armageddon predictions associated with the Y2K conversion efforts
for all those mainframe applications using a two digit date field?
At the same time, it seemed like any company with a business idea related to the internet
became prime investments for Venture Capital firms. Some companies even changed
their name to end with “.com” to capitalize on the hysteria. For a while, if you could
design a website using HTML you too were a hot commodity. And suddenly in 2001, the
“dot com” bust finally occurred.
Seemingly as quickly, the world changed and became “flat” as described in Thomas
Friedman’s book published in 2005; “The World Is Flat”. Now, not only was technology
continuing to change at a rapid pace, America was competing on a larger, global playing
field.
Outsourcing and off-shoring projects became all the rage in the early to mid-2000’s. The
successful completion of a large number of fiber optic, transatlantic communication
cables capable of data rates of up to 10 gigabytes / second provided access to a cheap and
educated workforce primarily in India and China. During this time careers in technology
did not look so promising in America as companies cut back on IT investments and
hiring technical staff.
ERP specialists were the exception during this time as Fortune 500 companies sought to
optimize their operations to compete more efficiently and globally. Whether a functional
or technical specialist with SAP, Oracle, i2, PeopleSoft, Baan, Lawson or JD Edwards
experience, this was a time of high earnings.
Application developers with Java, C++, or .Net framework experience saw a decline in
demand, while data architects and data warehouse specialists stayed in high demand as
companies struggled with complex ERP and Business Intelligence system
implementations.
Then, another change began taking place. Is it possible to over emphasize the influence
on both the personal and business use of social media sites? From 2002 to 2006, the
following sites were placed in operation: Friendster, MySpace (a response to Friendster
with the first version coded in 10 days!), Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
Along with increased use of the World Wide Web came increased risk of hackers and
potentially devastating computer viruses to the business enterprise. Greater attention was
placed on information security with new hardware and software products being
developed, along with new career paths developing around data security. These increased
threats quickly elevated the importance of the position of Chief Information Security
Officer (CISO). By 2009, 85% of large organizations reported having a CISO, up from
43% in 2006.
RIM’s Blackberry can arguably be credited with kicking off the mobile computing race.
Soon, PDAs, smart phones and ultimately electronic tablets accelerated by the iPad

3. introduction, created demand for a new type of development professional. Experience
with operating systems such as iOS, Android, Windows CE, BREW, and Symbian along
with software languages like Objective C, J2ME and Python grew in demand. Working
closer to the operating system increased in importance, something more typically
associated with engineering or scientific software development efforts.
Last but not least, the acceptance of cloud computing as a viable business model is
changing the technology landscape again. Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a
Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) now provide access to applications
and services previously available only to larger firms with deep capital resources.
Technology professionals such as Business Analysts, Project Managers and Subject
Matter Experts (SMEs) with a deeper understanding of how a business operates
combined with strong technical skills, have reemerged in importance.
To finish this off, here is a short list of some of the more important events for each year
The InSource Group has been in business. We hope you enjoy the trip as much as we
have.
1992 – Ross Perot Sr., founder of EDS announces his presidential candidacy as an
independent candidate, with most of the country still asking, “What’s the World Wide
Web?”
1993 – Mosaic was the first graphical web browser released for browsing the internet.
1994 – Yahoo is started as a personal list of sites by two Stanford college students, David
Filo and Jerry Yang.
1995 – The Java language introduced by Sun Microsystems and Amazon.com becomes
operational, while less than 27% of U.S. households own personal computers according
to Dataquest.
1996 – The average modem transfers data at 14,400 bps and “dial up” is still the
dominate method of connecting to the internet.
1997 – Personal computer ownership in U.S. households rises to 43%.
1998 – Windows 98 OS released by Microsoft.
1999 – Craigslist’s website is incorporated, the original version of Napster’s file sharing
software debuts, and the Melissa email virus is unleashed.
2000 – The Internet bubble peaks on March 10th, and the NASDAQ and other markets
begin their yearlong downward spiral.
2001 – Wikipedia debuts and the Apple iPod is released.

4. 2002 – The Blackberry smartphone by RIM is introduced supporting email and web
browsing.
2003 – Apple iTunes store opens while 67% of users who download music from the
internet say they do not care whether the music is copyrighted or not.
2004 – Facebook is started by Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg, Google files for their
IPO and the number one word of the year based on on-line lookup according to Merriam
– Webster’s was “blog.”
2005 – YouTube is founded and Google Earth is launched.
2006 – The social networking service Twitter is founded and the first Sony e-book reader
is released.
2007 – The first Apple iPhone was released and the smart phone frenzy accelerates. Is
there anything else worth talking about?
2008 – Microsoft offers to buy Yahoo for $44.6 billion and the PC mouse turns 40 years
old.
2009 – The Internet turns 40 years old, and almost 1/3 of the world’s population is
surfing the internet.
2010 – The Apple iPad was introduced and Bill Gates was quoted, “It is a nice reader but
there is nothing on the iPad I look at and say Oh, I wish Microsoft had done that”.
Uhhhh Bill, would you like to take that statement back?
2011 – On aggregate, healthcare information technology combined with advances in
medical device technology opens up a whole new area for information technology
innovation.
Wayne Rampey
Vice President
About The Insource Group
The InSource Group is a software-product development, technical consulting and IT
staffing and recruitment company that provides a complete spectrum of flexible solutions
for IT staffing needs, including contract, contract-to-hire and direct hire options. More
information on IT recruiters in Dallas and IT jobs in Dallas, Tx can be found at
http://www.insourcegroup.com/