Anyone read through this article/book? The article was published in the May 2003 of the HBR.
The book (Does IT Matter) was published in 2004. http://tinyurl.com/8x69k

Heres a link to the article in PDF form on the NCSU Library System (must have Unity login)
http://tinyurl.com/cbqfb Not sure if it'll work or not, but give it a try.

Overall I think this guy is just a high level troll, just thought it might provide some of you with some interesting reading.

[Edited on January 19, 2006 at 10:32 AM. Reason : ]

1/19/2006 10:31:10 AM

at least i thought it was interesting

maybe a bit too academic for most

[Edited on January 19, 2006 at 2:13 PM. Reason : ]

1/19/2006 2:09:31 PM

There are no trolls.

Only people who don't agree.

1/19/2006 2:13:05 PM

Haven't read it, but I'll look into it if my local library has it. I'd like to see how he presents arguments and on what level they are presented.

1/19/2006 6:20:30 PM

Argument summary?

1/19/2006 8:44:44 PM

IT is like other innovations like electric power and railroads. once industry fully adopts them, they offer no real competitive advantage.

1/19/2006 9:10:57 PM

The article you posted is extremely brief ... it leaves several holes in his arguments due to spacing restrictions unfortunately. Intrigues me enough to find the book. Couple things in the article I saw that caught my eye.

Quote :

"And as for IT-spurred industry transformations, most of the ones that are going to happen have likely already happened or are in the process of happening."

This is the most absurd statement I've read in awhile. Google has been around for ... 5 years now? And revoluttionary ideas/concepts like this won't spawn in the future? Right...

Quote :

"First, IT's power is outstripping most of the business needs it fulfills. Second, the price of essential IT functionality has dropped to the point where it is more or less affordable to all. Third, the capacity of the imiversal distribution network (the Internet) has caught up with demand indeed, we already have considerably more fiber-optic capacity than we need. Fourth, IT vendors are rushing to position themselves as commodity suppliers or even as utilities. Finally, and most definitively, the investment bubble has burst, which historically has been a clear indication that an infrastructural technology is reaching the end of its buildout."

Ask anybody who works in a biological scienes field how long it takes to do protein folding and tell me if any of that still applies....

Dude's website is here: http://www.nicholasgcarr.com/articles/matter.html. I'm going to sleep.

[Edited on January 20, 2006 at 12:03 AM. Reason : .]

1/19/2006 11:58:58 PM

Quote :

"IT is like other innovations like electric power and railroads. once industry fully adopts them, they offer no real competitive advantage."

No, IT is not like electric power or railroads in that regard. IT is not a commodity, it's an ever-evolving (almost by its very nature) value-add.

Piques my interest though. I'll try to find this somewhere too.

1/20/2006 7:13:52 AM

IT from a business point of view is entirely different from the Google and protein folding examples some of you have quoted. IT in business is an enabler. It is a tool to help business. I think the reason you're not having an open mind about the article is the fact that engineers/computer programmers have a somewhat convoluted view of IT in the enterprise sense.

1/20/2006 11:49:03 AM

IT is the new 'adminstrative assistant'.

Don't kid yourself.

1/20/2006 12:10:44 PM

^ bingo

1/20/2006 12:13:08 PM

Quote :

"This is the most absurd statement I've read in awhile."

I'll agree with this. The potential for more IT implemented technologies is pretty dynamic...compared with the binary nature of railroads and electrical power. Either you have it, or you don't. Many IT implemented technologies offer a real competitive advantage (until the other guys gets it too, which I think is Carr's point) But once a copycat gets a similar technology, your business can develop/adopt another one and restore your competitive advantage.

And gargs is right, we're discussing the value IT brings to a business, not just flat out technological innovations: eg better searches and faster procs. You have to consider whether an IT implemented innovation can offer a business a competitive advantage. If everyone has the innovation (faster procs) then it offers no real advantage. if you have a proprietary software system linking your marketing and sales department with your finance department with your manufacturing department with your supply chain and your main competitor doesn't, then that offers a significant advantage.

[Edited on January 20, 2006 at 2:50 PM. Reason : ]

1/20/2006 2:45:06 PM

The point just made about IT being dynamic is how it really does differ... if you have companies just playing copycat then sure... IT is no different than adding some new tool that your competitor did because you saw them do it. The key is whether or not your company can actually utilize or create something new that your competitors does not have via IT. The possibilities are extended greatly by IT... but... most people just want to use it to make their current methods faster, etc, etc...

Every single day I deal with creating new tools, developing concepts, and coming up with ideas that power global trade.. through new automated communications methods with the government, rules engines, database schemes.... what we do here is not exactly something you go out and purchase/copycat and thusly it loses its value through saturation.

In many big businesses however I believe IT is truly becoming the new 'administrative assistant' simply due to the pigeonhole effect that it gets by business oriented people. Google and Microsoft (just to name 2 huge giants) don't just use IT concepts to just assist some other form of their business scheme... however that is what most people see IT as.. and so ultimately that is all they will attempt to use it for. So yeah.. for some companies IT doesn't matter.. it is just an expected "upgrade" so to speak to match the current business environment... but that isn't exactly the case for all companies these days.

I know I left a bunch of holes in that and it may not make a lot of sense.. but I am in a huge hurry and wanted to make a point in case I never catch this thread again

[Edited on January 20, 2006 at 2:57 PM. Reason : edit damnit]

1/20/2006 2:53:50 PM

I haven't read the article, so unless I'm completely framing this the wrong way, the point about competitive advantage only lasting "until the other guys get it too" doesn't always hold up.

Much of IT relies on intellectual property that can be protected from "the other guys"

1/20/2006 5:42:09 PM

Can you give examples of patented IT?

1/20/2006 5:42:52 PM

maybe we're not talking about the same thing, but:
Google, Microsoft, Cisco...

All of which make a bulk of their money selling their respective products that they make available to businesses, but nothing prevents them from keeping it to themselves to reap a competitive advantage.

For one, Google's search algorithm (an example of protected IP that Google has successfully kept secret and managed to make money off of)


[Edited on January 20, 2006 at 5:50 PM. Reason : ]

1/20/2006 5:47:21 PM

yes we aren't talking about the same thing.

1/20/2006 5:49:23 PM

well it depends on the angle you take then.

If you're viewing IT as nothing more than a tool to help business, that's probably a bit restrictive.

I'm going to keep my mouth shut until I read the article.

1/20/2006 5:53:57 PM

Quote :

"1."Information technology" is a fuzzy term. In this article, it is used in its common current sense, as denoting the technologies used for processing, storing, and transporting information in digital form."

Even that definition is fairly vague ... why I said the book was needed . I consider Google and protein folding to both be technlogies that fit that definition. Otherwise, if IT = computer support, then I'm more inclined to agree with SandSanta.

1/21/2006 7:08:13 AM

IT in the enterprise, losely defined, is the use of technology to effectively circulate information to everyone in the enterprise in such a way that it actually leverages all of that to help make quizk decisions and/or create competitive advantage in the form of increased process throughput. As such, it is a tertiary system. It is an enabler. IT in the enterprise has more to do with management of technology than actual creation of technology.

For example, use of RFIDs or bar codes for inventory management is an IT implementation. Everyone can use it. They can be bought off the shelf. But the real IT differentiator would be the way that information is distributed and managed, and used to take important decisions about the inventory, whether manually or in an automated fashion.

[Edited on January 21, 2006 at 1:09 PM. Reason : .]

1/21/2006 1:06:43 PM