Content area
Full Text
photo, Richard Hackathorn
In the May issue of the respectable Harvard Business Review (HBR), Nicholas Carr argued that information technology (IT) doesn't matter anymore to corporate strategy.1 As an independent writer and editor, Carr has guided many outstanding authors of HBR articles.2 Therefore, he is a person who should know the pulse of the IT industry from a managerial perspective. As IT professionals, we must take note of this article.
His argument is quite simple. IT is extremely important within corporations, but IT has become a universal resource for those corporations. The basis for a sustained competitive advantage is scarcity, not ubiquity. Hence, IT has become a commodity resource and, therefore, is no longer strategic. By now, the core functions of IT - data storage, data processing and data transport - have become available and affordable to all. Their very power and presence have begun to transform them from potentially strategic resources into commodity factors of production. They are becoming costs of doing business that must be paid by all but provide distinction to none.3
Carr distinguishes between proprietary technologies and infrastructural technologies. He argues that IT has shifted...