I was not an HR person. Was in OCS for about 5 years during the dot.com days. Saw firsthand how people paid a lot of money for what amounted to nothing of much benefit. I was told that if a salesperson wasn't making $500K then s/he was deemed unsuccessful. Guess it's different today since there's way too many competing solutions.
The Cloud isn't a miracle solution anymore than any other product. It has its uses and that'll be oversold to make money for the vendors. We all know that and it really shouldn't surprise anyone. The industry I'm in will not quickly embrace the Cloud because they don't trust the Cloud or Cloud vendors and rightfully so. Don't forget, trust & security matter a lot more than sales people understand. A lot of these buyers survived the dot.com era and know better and having some 20-30 year old call trying to sell this stuff to highly educated and experienced engineers and managers is a fool's errand. Age discrimination cuts both ways and it's funny to watch the newbies try to appear credible to the 50+ year old engineers and managers pushing the new and improved solution they call the Cloud. These people know that these kids - you should know how you're viewed by your customer - don't have the experiences to know what is best for the customer. Especially since the previous - layed off - rep sold them million$$ of software and hardware products before they left telling them this was exactly what they needed.
Anyway, they'll wait and see who goes to the Cloud and see what the real issues are and how that works out. Most already have their data centers modernized and they're running great on the Microsoft & Oracle environments hosting their apps now. They also have the staff that's trained and knows what they're doing. Microsoft and Oracle has made sure there's a lot of highly trained technical staff and engineers that are up to the job of keeping these centers running for a long time and there is no incentive to risk breaking apart a good situation and having to explain it.
True, LE didn't do it all on his own. But that doesn't really matter now does it. All I'm trying to do is to tell you that it was a bubble-trap then and it is the same thing now for most people. This business will eventually chew you up so just prepare yourself for that. I worked with big O people who were at the top of their game during the dot.com era - a few in the $400-$500 hour range with 100% plus utilization - and they were deemed untouchable. And they were for another 2-3 years until they were cut. Wasn't their fault, they sacrificed family and their homelife just like the crew today. It was just that they weren't part of the chosen one's to move forward with the direction someone sold the Corp on. Believe me, they will lose money just to change directions and will not care one bit about you or your revenue stream. I saw that for 5 years and it appears nothing has changed.
It's pretty simple. Be perfectly clear what your current and future value is to the company and any potential employer. I was paid exceptionally well, assigned highly visible projects and won my share of awards and trips from my consulting group. I saw what was happening and decided to leave on my own accord because I knew that the clock was ticking. People thought I was pretty foolish for leaving when I did. Sorry to say some were gone in under a year.
No one there was bad, no one was evil - ok, that's a judgement call I guess. It's just the way they do business and I accepted that as part of the job. Still, the advantages to those leaving are real in that you are walking out the door with skills and abilities that have significant market value. I know because that's exactly what I did. My time there was both wonderful and miserable, but that's OCS. I'm much better off professionally and financially for having been an O employee. My bet is you will be too once you get past the current miserable situation.
I am not the original poster ( @OxgxKQq-zgx is), but I thought this deserved a separate thread.