Is the IT Department Dead?

alphadogg writes "The IT department is dead, and it is a shift to utility computing that will kill this corporate career path. So predicts Nicholas Carr in his new book launched Monday, "The Big Switch: Rewiring the World from Edison to Google." Carr is best known for a provocative Harvard Business Review article entitled "Does IT Matter?" Published in 2003, the article asserted that IT investments didn't provide companies with strategic advantages because when one company adopted a new technology, its competitors did the same."

Comments

Re:Depends on the Market

[mrhandstand]

I'm a QSA (PCI authorized auditor), and have done several PCI audits over the last year. I disagree with your statement; you can outsource whatever you like as long as you have the proper contractual language and the outsourcer takes appropriate action/care with the data. I have submitted multiple Reports On Compliance in which the business utilized outsourcing and had the report accepted by the card brands. Same thing for shared systems - its all a matter of doing so in the proper manner.

Re:Depends on the Market

[silas_moeckel]

Funny I have clients what outsource there PCE to PCI certified hosting providers. Really it's not much different that the way paypal works they never know the customers card data they just get a UID from that provider and pass that back to them whenever they need to charge or credit anything. It makes it past a PCI audit and since the provider themselves has been independently audited and insured it makes the companies have a warm fuzzy that they don't have any direct exposure.

Re:lack of disadvantage is advantage

[Otter]

Actually early adopters will simply improvie their operational effectiveness in relation to the competition, this is not the same as strategic advantage...

Terminology aside, Carr's whole point is that the advantages of first adopters do not outweigh the added costs, wrong choices and time spent on cultivating "vision" and "alignment" relative to companies who wait for a consensus to emerge and then make their investment. He certainly doesn't "ignore" the issue.

Re:Depends on the Market

[mrhandstand]

Payment Card Industry https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/ - Data handling standards for CC data.

Half a decade later, and still an idiot

[swordgeek]

Carr's "infamous" HBR article in 2003 made it appear that he's either an idiot, or someone just looking to get attention however he can. Furthermore, the five years that have passed since that article have proved him WRONG. Not just slightly off, but flat-out wrong in nearly every prediction he made.

Why are we bothering to listen to this idiot now?