Lack of Innovation in IT Holding Companies Back?

bednarz writes to mention that Google's Dave Girouard, manager of enterprise business, is blaming a "crisis" in IT and the "insane complexity" of technology, among other things, for the lack of innovation that could allow businesses to grow. "A lot of things that people think of as core IT functions need to disappear into the ether so that the IT organization can properly focus on the value-added [activities]," he said. "Information security, as critical as it is, needs to be taken care of by organizations who live and die by it, who invest the money, time, resources and staff. Why should every company in the world have to build up their own expertise and have to maintain servers and provide security?"

Comments

Executive Summary

[Lord Grey]

Article breakdown:

30%: IT spends too much maintaining complex systems and not innovating new ones. Farm out the maintenance.

5%: Adding eye candy, bells and whistles to software makes it more complex and therefore more difficult to maintain.

65%: Google Apps should be used by everyone.

See any serious problems with this story? Sure! "Lack of content" springs to mind.

Re:Another side effect of the Iraq war

[Mr. Underbridge]

The Federal Government, which pays for most of the innovation in the US (directly through r&d contracts, or indirectly through grants) has cut back on its tech spending to free up money for the war.

Defense money, now as in the 1950s, does in substantial fashion go to tech innovation. You might have heard of a few of the (D)ARPA projects; in fact, you're using one now.