The same thing can certainly happen in IT. How many IBM folks specializing in lotus notes are being laid off as we speak? Its one of the bigger problems working at BigCo's - you can end up only knowing internal people and internal systems. The only place you can conceivably jump to is companies nearby founded by other ex-BigCo people (in many cases nowadays, the primary competitors are overseas - capital has free trade to move freely but humans do not).

If you don't maintain some semblance of connection with the outside world you can get stuck. The scariest thing in the world to me is a job that is only internal facing.