Consumers Energy, a large utility in Michigan, has hired an offshore outsourcing firm to take over some of its IT operations. But instead of cutting its internal IT employees, it is retraining them for new types of work.

A help desk can be a real lifesaver for employees, not to mention a productivity boost. If a keyboard stops working or Outlook keeps crashing, a technician is just a phone call away. Even complex problems can usually be resolved internally, and relatively quickly, without the need for an outside vendor.

Some 60% of the IT workers surveyed reported being asked to take on new tasks and boost their productivity, and slightly more than half (51%) said that they feel underpaid based on their role and responsibility. Still, the vast majority (81%) are satisfied or very satisfied that they chose a career in IT. (Base: 4,337 IT professionals)

The number of IT jobs at large corporations is declining significantly, but within 10 years this exodus may end as companies run out of jobs suitable for moving to low-cost countries, a new study says.

Fernando GonzalezFavorite pastime: Watching my grandchildren grow. Something interesting that most people don't know about you: My love of the arts, primarily painting. I can draw very well, [but] I can't put life to what I draw. In high school, I was... a bookworm. One of my nicknames in school was "Professor." Last book you read:John Adams by David McCullough. Role model: Victor E. Villaseor, who wrote Rain of Gold . He writes a book every 10 years, and the fact that you can dedicate yourself to this one thing for 10 years -- that's dedication.

U.S. companies have been hiring workers from India for years, especially graduates of U.S. universities.

Oracle is set to pay $US35 million to roughly 1,725 workers in order to settle a class-action suit brought against it over overtime pay and meal-break issues dating back to 2003.

Oracle's Exadata database machine can deliver the performance improvements the vendor claims, but also demands that IT shops and database administrators undergo a shift in thinking as well as attain new skills, a number of experts said this week at the OpenWorld conference in San Francisco.

Running the internal IT operations of Cisco Systems is a big job not just because of the size of the company -- more than 70,000 employees worldwide and a market capitalisation in the range of $US100 billion -- but also because Cisco is continually developing new IT products across a broad range of technologies and is known for rapidly adopting those products for its own use. Cisco CIO Rebecca Jacoby spoke with IDG News Service on the sidelines of the NetWork conference last week and shared some insights into the legendary enterprise IT company's own enterprise IT.