Carr (Again) Predicts IT's Demise
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In 2004, Nicholas Carr created a few waves--drawing the ire of IT professionals and striking fear into the heart of CEOs and CFOs--when he wrote the book "Does IT Matter?" In it, he reasons that IT had become a commodity, offering companies little strategic advantage because as soon as one company adopts a new technology, its competitors do the same. In 2008, Carr is back again with his new book, "The Big Switch: Rewiring the World from Edison to Google," this time predicting the demise of corporate IT departments, to be replaced by utility computing. "In the long run, the IT department is unlikely to survive, at least in its familiar form. It will have little left to do once the bulk of business computing shifts out of private data centers and into 'the cloud,'" Carr writes. Because individual employees will be able to the processing of information directly, they won't need a legion of technical specialists to help them along--and this will impact businesses tremendously. But what about the IT worker? Carr seems to recommend a move into information management and strategy. "Over the next five or 10 years, the technical aspect of the IT department will become less important. It will slowly evaporate as more of those experts go outside onto the grid," Carr told CIO Insight. "But the information management and information strategy elements will become, if anything, more important. The ways companies take advantage of digitized information will become more important, not less." |
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Comments (7)
This is technically possible, however I think Carr is way off base in the time frame on when this will happen. It may happen in 15 - 20 years but it is unlikely to occur within 5 years as he stated.
Posted by JM | February 1, 2008 11:28 AM
Sounds like this guy has never done any real work. His premise is laughable, like why would a company need a credit department. All the credit information is on-line, the decision making process can be automated, etc.
Anyway, as long as idiots like this get airplay the already complex tasks we do face will be made harder by the more difficult justifification to people who think this drivel makes sense.
Posted by Edgar Dollin | February 1, 2008 12:59 PM
...and somewhere out there in this "new" paradigm, an enduser at his or her desk will still call "Technical Support" and get someone outside of the United States who, with a thick accent, tells them:
- 1. "...the problem is on YOUR end..."
- 2. "Turn off your machine and turn it back on again."
Not to sound too negative, but yeah...so much will change. After all, a toothbrush is still just a stick with bristles, but it has changed into so many diverse looking products in the same family, and only one thing remains terribly constant when it comes to the toothbrush:
- 1. Everyone needs to use one, and
- 2. Many of those who don't, SHOULD...!
...just my $0.02
*sigh*
Posted by Paul Peirce | February 1, 2008 1:13 PM
Carr makes some very useful points, but his approach reminds me of what one one of my Professors once told a group his graduate students during an informal chat. Discussing variuos ways of achiving a successful academic career my Professor noted, "Of course one way to be successful is to take an extreme initial position and then spend the rest of your academic career modifying and qualifying exactly what that position really is."
Posted by jonmca | February 1, 2008 3:06 PM
I would definitely concur with Carr on this. Data is increasingly moving into the Internet cloud, transmitted via XML or JSON data feeds or SOA bound services between heterogeneous platforms and diverse companies, and business logic processing is in turn becoming more declarative (in essence enabling the notion that the business logic for a company can be created and modified by non-programmers working with simple user interfaces).
I don't see IT disappearing altogether, but the IT presence will increasingly be moving away from the physical process of hosting the systems or the need to build large scale tightly-coupled applications. However, having people who understand data routing, querying and transformations WILL be increasingly important, even if more procedural applications disappear into the woodwork.
Posted by Kurt Cagle | February 1, 2008 3:40 PM
The last time I checked (from 2004 to now in 2008) it seems many of us are still here and IT becoming a commodity still hasn't happened to any great degreee. I guess the question now becomes one of "Does Nicholas Carr Matter ?".
Posted by CIO Type | February 4, 2008 9:30 AM
Ooooohhh. Big deal. Carr had so many holes in his initial thesis that I can't believe anyone still takes him seriously. There are several things wrong with Carr's arguments. First, he continues to compare the transformation of information to 19th century utilities like the railroad or electricity. Information is not a uniform commodity; thus the comparisons fall apart. Second, Carr continues to ignore that the strategic value of internal IT lies in customizing solutions to the needs of internal business customers - services that the large providers/"cloud" can not do. IT is more about providing networking and tech services, it is about transforming data based on the unique needs of a company into information used to drive business decisions. This is something that the "cloud" fails miserably at.
Posted by Blair Christensen | February 5, 2008 9:58 AM