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Why I.T. Matters
Anonymous Coward writes "Technology Review has an interesting story from the inventor of the Ethernet refuting the claim that IT has lost its strategic value." Our earlier story summarizes the original claim: that there's little to be gained by staying at the forefront of technology.
Of course I.T. has value, just because everyone has it doesn't make it worthess. Imagine a new startup that didn't have email and web access resorting to faxes, snail mail and the library for all its research. They'd be out of business in no time.
I can't imagine Henry Ford saying "Horseless carriages have no value because everyone has them."
Trolling is a art,
My father's been in IT since the beginning (about 30 years). Here's what he had to say about Carr's article (from my email archives):
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This is a horrible article in many more ways than I thought.
The author is fundamentally wrong, and I intend to prove why.
The foundations of his "fundamental error" can be found early on in the article, when he draws a parallel between IT and various other "things" (telegraph, engines, etc.). Go check it out, neatr the bottom of the second page (page 6 in the original HBR pagination). In the attached PDF, you'll see my yellow highlights, and my annotations, which summarize my objections to the article.
Here's the fundamental error. The parallel he makes is not valid at all. You can tell by observing that the author's examples (steam engine, railroad, telegraph, telephone, generator, internal combustion engine) do NOT fit his argument AT ALL - because they are NOT in any way similar or comparable to IT.
First off, those examples are NOT technologies. They are instances, mere temporal "instantiations" of some technologies. Second, when you look at his numerous examples, you can see that they are merely milestones - some of the many - that have characterized the development path of just TWO technologies: the technology of transportation, and the technology of communication. And you also realize that each new milestone in that list DID represent strategic competitive advantage, regardless of the ubiquity of the two underlying technologies (which have been around nearly forever).
In a very real sense, then, it is RIGHT THERE that the author begins to unwittingly undermine his own argument:
If it is indeed true (as it is, and as he himself later states) that each of those milestones DID create strategic advantage for early adopters and smart or insightful users (key detail, please take notice: for early adopters and smart or insightful users) -- it then follows that there IS ample historical proof of the great long-term strategic value that is inherent in communication technology and in transportation technology. The ubiquity of those technologies is an irrelevant issue, it is entirely besides the point. People have ALWAYS had some form of transportation and and some form of communication. But that dosn't mean that each of those technologies "doesn't matter". Quite the opposite, they both DO matter a lot. But what evidently must matter THE MOST, self-evidently for me but apparently not for the author, must be the FORMS they take, the HOWS of the ways in which the techology is being UTILIZED and/or EXPLOITED, which ultimately boils down to that key but little-noticed clause about early adopters and smart insightful users!...
When everybody walked, the first wheel made a key difference.
When everyone had wheels, the first horse made a key difference.
And so on, and so forth...
But that's precisely what the author FAILS TO SEE in the proper light, even though he often uses examples that suggest precisely the opposite of his conclusions.
Through this fundamental initial error of perspective, the author's whole viewpoint is fatally skewed and blindsighted throuhgout the article. From the shallowness of this initial analysis, and from the appalling intellectual superficiality of these fundamental non-sequiturs which are put forth as his basic premises and laid out up front as keystones of his whole perspective -- the author ends up drawing even more fallacious and yet VERY DANGEROUS conclusions.
His conclusions are dangerous to the innumerable run-of-the-mill, middle-of-the-road, mediocre managers everywhere, who are not mentally equipped to catch this fundamental ERROR in the author's argument, and who therefore will be lulled into BELIEVING the author's conclusions.
I maintain that these managers, and their businesses, will be SWEPT AWAY INTO OBLIVION, just as they've been in the past, by those other and much more sharp-minded managers who don't believe this bullshit for a mi
Solely for the fact that if your competitor has it, and you don't, he's not your competitor, he's the guy who just beat the crap out of your bottom line.
IT hasn't lost its value. It has just become more of a blue-collar job.
The owls are not what they seem
but not having IT is a strategic disadvantage
IT in and of itself is quite useful. Our world is quite locked in to using technology.
Some modern improvemnts, however, are of little strategic value (to the vast majority of customers).
Take Microsoft's updates to Word in the past years. The significance of the updates in Word from Office 2000 through XP to 2003 is little to none. Thanks to backwards compatibility, I can run an old Linux box to serve websites, and it won't matter that the technology is from 1998 (assuming I secure the machine).
I wouldn't say innovation is worthless, but a lot of IT has become maintaining unecessary updates.
I find the discussions around I.T. amusing as I see concern about electronic voting, privacy, file sharing, and IP become the focus of new laws and protests.
I.T. is, at it's heart, technology enabling the collection, storage, retrieval, analysis and control of information.
(This is used to make decisions --- predictive as well as reactionally, as well as manipulate the 'ugly bags of mostly water' who's only connection to this would is via a hand full of easily confused primitive senses, and a questionable ability to accurately remember and/or interpret the data that they provide.)
He who controls the data, could appear to control the world!
I.T. will stop mattering when information stops mattering. As long as information provides power, those in IT have nothing to worry about.
There's nothing wrong with plumbing. Those guys get paid rather well and they don't have to do jack.
You're nothing; like me.