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Domain: nicholasgcarr.com

Stories and comments across the archive that link to nicholasgcarr.com.

Comments · 5

  1. Re:lack of disadvantage is advantage by budgenator · · Score: 1 · on Is the IT Department Dead?
    While I won't presume to know more than the author of that book,
    Why?

    Carr has been a speaker at MIT, Harvard, Wharton, the Kennedy School of Government, Moscow State University, NASA, and the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas as well as at many industry, corporate, and professional events throughout the Americas, Europe, and Asia. He holds a B.A. from Dartmouth College and an M.A., in English literature, from Harvard University. Nicholas G. Carr

    Obviously getting into Dartmouth and Harvard means your smart, but those credentials don't mean your particularly good at understanding IT or business, just good at communicating with PHB's. There are a lot of people around here with that much or more mental horsepower, better and more applicable credentials as well as more experience in IT and Real World Business.
  2. Duh? by toby · · Score: 4, Insightful · on Massive Chasm In Asia's Public Sector IT Spending
    "What is the reason behind this chasm?"

    (!!??) Look at the math: India has 1.2 billion, many of which are at subsistence level; Australia, a "developed" country, has 20 million fattening middle class aspirants. A 200:1 ratio reflects that reality.

    And of the $200 spent per head in lazy republics, 90% of it goes down the drain (FBI's Keystone Cops IT fiasco; name-your-favourite-boondoggle; even Russia caught quickly on to the overspend-and-underdeliver game, it's a great way to embezzle). Raising indigent populations to Western standards of waste is not really helpful, is it.

    Anyway, if you didn't get Carr's memo: IT's a commodity now. The industry's shrinkage can't be blamed on nine-whatever or the "War on Common Sense"; the gold rush days are OVER. Spend less and spend better (hint: not on *cough* MS junk; hint: don't reinvent - unless it's to take business from MS :)

  3. IT Doesn't Matter by agurk · · Score: 1 · on The Changing Face Of Campus Tech

    This is a nice situation where we can say that IT doesn't really matter. Since almost all schools have IT.

  4. Fits what Nicholas G. Carr predicts in HBR by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting · on Technology Buying Slump
    The article dovetails nicely with Nicholas Carr's Harvard Business Review article IT Doesn't Matter in which Carr states that:
    • IT is now infrastructure technology and a commodity item,
    • the cost of failing to maintain the IT infrastructure is extremely high (i.e., IT is a basic requirement of doing business; losing your IT infrastructure for even an hour may be very costly),
    • most companies in any given industry have the same IT, and thus
    • IT no longer confers any strategic advantage.


    Carr claims that for the above reasons:

    • IT should "be boring",
    • CIOs should *avoid* adopting the latest technology, since statistics show that early adoption confers no advantages,
    • CIOs should concentrate on minimizing risks instead.
  5. Re:IT doesn't matter by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative · on Managing IT As An Investment

    Here is Carr's pageabout his article "IT Doesn't Matter" and ensuing discussions concerning that article. Carr's article is available from Harvard Business Review only for a fee but the URL given here provides a number of links that delve into the details of Carr's hypothesis. While most of the URLs disagree with Carr, I believe he has has struck a nerve with both CEOs and IT managers everywhere. The impact of his article, coming at this crucial time for IT, cannot be overstate