10 Dying IT Skills

These 10 skills are no longer as valuable as they once were, according to a white paper by Global Knowledge.

1. COBOL. Although COBOL applications still process a hefty percentage of the world's business data, they won't be in COBOL forever.
2. HTML. Today's web developers need more than a good grasp of HTML.
3. SNA. IBM's proprietary Systems Network Architecture is still in use, but permanent jobs requiring SNA skills are increasingly rare.
4. Siebel. Siebel's CRM software couldn't compete against software-as-a-service (SaaS) packages, and demand for Siebel expertise is decreasing.
5. RAD/Extreme Programming. Since 2003, these skills have been losing ground as more application development is outsourced.
6. ColdFusion. This language has been eclipsed by Microsoft .NET, Java, PHP, and Ruby on Rails.
7. Wireless Application Protocol. WAP now has to compete with a new generation of mobile web browsers.
8. Visual J++. Microsoft's version of Java had a troubled history from the beginning and was eventually replaced by .NET.
9. Novell NetWare. Novell certifications used to be hot, but hiring managers now want Windows Server and Linux skills.
10. Asynchronous Transfer Mode. ATM never took off as a LAN platform, and a growing number of carriers are using Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS).