A futurist topic

Hey all,

Have a read of this:

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/12/17/technology…

Wondering if anyone shares my view that when the following happen:

(1) parallel computing finally does become viable and affordable for the BBs; and

(2) the spiritual successor and/or ass kicking descendant of Excel able to take advantage of parallel computing arrives

the analyst and associate roles are going to evolve. Not disappear or become redundant, but evolve. How? Well, i dont know, but my hopeful guess is that analysts and associates will no longer have to spend much time modeling or building models. You will have software complex and intelligent enough (not in the AI 'i am self aware' sense, but stuff with a very deep, complex, and intuitive UI capable of navigation purely through voice) to handle any modeling task with verbal instruction. So long as you can plug that in with d-bases like Thomson or Edgar that hopefully, would have similarly evolved to be able to talk directly to the software without human intervention, you should be able to build out pretty complex valuations alot quicker .

Then, my hope is that analysts and associates will get more involved in the actual deal idea and client development processes early on, simply because it would make alot of sense for the ones who are good at it and have a knack for it. That might mean less analysts and associates, but it may also mean that those who do not really want to do banking, should have a better and easier way to do things they really want, and, with more powerful machines and pretty much any information being available freely (again, my speculation), you should be able to start a venture or find a career you like relatively more easily than today. Since, I am guessing that if anything, more powerful machines can only deepen and widen the sphere of commerce.

At the same time, the other aspect of the evolution would be that instead of knowing the Excel shortcuts, you'd need to be able to perhaps design algorithms and programs to execute valuations (think of them as uber-macros i guess). The thing is, if the software industry has the brains to do it, they will design the software such that you should be able to design these very simply in a fashion similar to recording macros in Excel. In other words, you wont need to know whatever programming language.

So there you have, my humble .02 cents on what the future may hold for the junior levels of that corner(stone) of commerce we all have a love-hate relationship with, called finance.

And before anyone starts poking holes in the logic or flames (dont know why but sometimes people just do it for God knows what reason), I am not trying to argue a point here. Just throwing out a thought to see what others think about what the future may hold.