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IT doesn't matter

 
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Does IT Matter? Information Technology and the Corrosion of Competitive Advantage
Mr Carr urges CIO's to spend less on their data centres, to opt for cheaper commodity equipment wherever possible to follow their rivals rather than trying to outdo them with fancy new systems and to focus more on IT's vulnerabilities from viruses to data theft than on it's opportunities.
Mr Carr suggests IT has become part of the infrastructure : - not a differentiator.
IT no longer matters.
This claim raised a furore that surely Mr Carr does not appreciate the impressive pipeline of new technologies that is about to hit the market - the wireless gadgets , the billions of tiny radio- frequency identity tags that will turn Aspirin bottles, shirt collars , refridgerator doors and almost everything else into smart machines etc.
Impressive indeed saya Mr Carr. But the issue is whether they will be proprietary technologies or open infrastructures. And everything points to the latter......
[ May 04, 2004: Message edited by: HS Thomas ]
 
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Electricity for instance became revolutionary for society only when it ceased to be a proprietary technology owned or used by one or two factories but instead became an infrastructure shared and used by all.
Roll on grid computing.....
 
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There was a similar article in last year's Harvard Business Review(I don't remember exact month of the article).
This kind of stuff creates a temporary wave, but at the end of the day, it is the value proposition that really matters.
Some parts of IT may be becoming a commodity, but there is lots of ways togo before the above mentioned book may hold true.
Until then we can be assured of some careers in IT(in US or India it depends).
 
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When I saw the title, I thought the thread is about penis size
 
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Originally posted by Kishore Dandu:
There was a similar article in last year's Harvard Business Review(I don't remember exact month of the article).


That is from the same author. Mr. Carr was the editor-in-chief of Harvard Business Review. This article has created a lot of debate in the academic cycles -- some of the researchers in my groups have published several articles on this topic. But curiously, I have not heard much about it in the "industry".
 
Kishore Dandu
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Originally posted by Michael Yuan:

That is from the same author. Mr. Carr was the editor-in-chief of Harvard Business Review. This article has created a lot of debate in the academic cycles -- some of the researchers in my groups have published several articles on this topic. But curiously, I have not heard much about it in the "industry".


Many CIOs in the industry did notice this and argued for or against it.
Ordinary folk like me does not bother about it because we are so down the chain.
The thing that bother me in the HBR article is, he compared rail road to IT. That's what I would consider as apples and oranges.
 
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Originally posted by Mapraputa Is:
When I saw the title, I thought the thread is about penis size


Now we know what is (alway??) on your mind
 
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IMO the fact that IT has become (or is becoming) a commodity doesn't mean it no longer matters.
In fact, as soon as it becomes a commodity it becomes harder and harder for people to do without it, therefore IT becomes ever more important to them.
Like we cannot do our business without electricity, so it is getting impossible to do business without IT.
Who still uses a paper ledger to keep track of sales?
Where are the sales agents going to customers with stacks of orderforms which are then processed by hand in the warehouse before being put into a file in the accounting department for sending out the bills by postal mail?
Atlanta Intl. Airport was shut down for several hours last week because of a computer failure, leaving tens of thousands of passengers nationwide of Delta Airlines and daughters stranded until the computers were back up.
 
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Originally posted by Jeroen Wenting:
IMO the fact that IT has become (or is becoming) a commodity doesn't mean it no longer matters.
In fact, as soon as it becomes a commodity it becomes harder and harder for people to do without it, therefore IT becomes ever more important to them.
Like we cannot do our business without electricity, so it is getting impossible to do business without IT.
Who still uses a paper ledger to keep track of sales?
Where are the sales agents going to customers with stacks of orderforms which are then processed by hand in the warehouse before being put into a file in the accounting department for sending out the bills by postal mail?
Atlanta Intl. Airport was shut down for several hours last week because of a computer failure, leaving tens of thousands of passengers nationwide of Delta Airlines and daughters stranded until the computers were back up.


Thank god you didn't blame any outsourced programmers for the Atlanta problem
 
Jeroen Wenting
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Originally posted by Kishore Dandu:

Thank god you didn't blame any outsourced programmers for the Atlanta problem


I don't know whether DL outsourced the development or support for their IT infrastructure so I couldn't blame anyone in particular.
I also don't know the reason of the outage. Was it software, hardware or electricity? Maybe someone cut a vital landline during construction work (I've had that happen on one project myself, the only dataline between the two buildings we occupied was severed leaving the entire team without access to our servers for 2 days until it was repaired).
 
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