Death of IT? -- Readings and Responses

¶ … Death of IT? -- Readings and Responses

The end of history. The death of the American nuclear family. The uselessness of IT. There is no better way to establish one's reputation as a controversial commentator than to make a sweeping, however unjustified pronouncement about the death of something, regardless of whether one has the data to back it up or not. Charles H. Duell, the director of the U.S. Patent Office, did so in 1899 when he said, "Everything that can be invented has been invented." (Evans 2004) Duell was wrong about technology, but right in the way he went about making quotable quotes and a public relations 'splash.'

Nicholas Carr's 2003 Harvard Business Review article "Does IT Really Matter," which he subsequently turned into a book, certainly roused accusations of stimulating more heat than light upon the issue. However, Carr's central thesis deserves the merit of further examination. Carr states, historically, from a business perspective, that when one examines the evolution of information technology in commerce, the technology will likely follow a pattern similar to earlier commodity technologies like railroads and electric power. For a brief period, as these infrastructure technologies were being built into the evolving networks of commerce, being on the cutting edge of the evolving technologies gave forward-looking companies a huge edge to gain strong competitive advantages in their respective marketplace. But as their availability of the new technology increases and the cost of the technology decreases, the infrastructure technology becomes ubiquitous, a mere uniform commodity input, rather than a marketplace advantage.

Computerworld almost immediately rebuked Carr for a focus on IT cost cutting rather than technical innovation and maintenance and risk avoidance over risk taking. (Keefe, 2003) Then, shortly after Carr authored his article, the New York Times conceded that business analysts saw the balance of power shifting away from suppliers towards corporate customers. It stated that reduced IT prices meant a good deal for customers and tricky time for investors. (Lohr, 2003) However, General Motors CIO Ralph Szygenda countered Nicholas Carr "may ultimately be correct when he says IT doesn't matter" but business-process improvement, competitive advantage, optimization, and business success do matter." These can be facilitated by IT innovation, "and they aren't commodities. To facilitate these business changes, IT can be considered a differentiator or a necessary evil. He did agree with Carr that "spending the minimum on IT to reach desired business results," is ideal. "Precision investment on core infrastructure and process-differentiation IT systems is called for in today's intensely cost-conscious business vs. The shotgun approach sometimes used in the past." (Evans, 2003)