I just finished “The Big Switch” and highly recommend reading the first half of the book. Carr does an excellent job of explaining the case for utility computing and how corporations will not be able to avoid that trend. All you have to do is look at what Google and Microsoft are doing. Microsoft is not after Yahoo for their portal. MS has recognized that utility comuting is the future, and that the desktop OS and software business that has been their bread and butter is beginning to decline. Their up until recently quietly growing Online Services business along with the Yahoo offers is their first tacit admission of that view. More to come on this later.
Avoid the second half of the book, except for entertainment value. That’s a bit drastic, his descriptions of current state data mining capabilities are slightly chilling, but not necessarily new. But Carr goes on to explain his vision of the future, and the dominance and control of everyday life and eventually human intelligence by what he annoyingly calls “the World Wide Computer”. Basically in Carr’s future Google is SkyNet.
Whither Corporate IT?
June 15, 2008 — charlieCross posted on my work blog, but I like it.
This edition of CIO insight contains a very good interview with Nicholas Carr, the guy who wrote the Harvard Business Review article “IT Doesn’t Matter” then book “Does IT Matter – Information Technology and the Corrosion of the Competitive Advantage“. His latest book “The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google” compares the evolution of utility computing (or cloud computing, pick your term of choice) to the growth of the electric utility business and why ultimately utility computing is where corporate IT is heading.
I just finished “The Big Switch” and highly recommend reading the first half of the book. Carr does an excellent job of explaining the case for utility computing and how corporations will not be able to avoid that trend. All you have to do is look at what Google and Microsoft are doing. Microsoft is not after Yahoo for their portal. MS has recognized that utility comuting is the future, and that the desktop OS and software business that has been their bread and butter is beginning to decline. Their up until recently quietly growing Online Services business along with the Yahoo offers is their first tacit admission of that view. More to come on this later.
Avoid the second half of the book, except for entertainment value. That’s a bit drastic, his descriptions of current state data mining capabilities are slightly chilling, but not necessarily new. But Carr goes on to explain his vision of the future, and the dominance and control of everyday life and eventually human intelligence by what he annoyingly calls “the World Wide Computer”. Basically in Carr’s future Google is SkyNet.