It Doesn't Matter

In the article "IT Doesn't Matter" Carr suggests that IT is no longer strategically important, therefore, organizations need to change the way they approached IT investment and management. Carr does not dispute that information technology is the backbone of commerce that supports individual business operations, vendor supply chains and customer relationship management. He suggests that as IT's power and ubiquity increase, its strategic value or capacity to provide a sustained competitive advantage decreases. He implies that IT is no more significant than electricity at this point to an organization, it is "becoming a cost of doing business that must be paid by all but provide distinction to none. " According to Carr IT has become a commodity and should be managed accordingly.

In the article Carr implies that IT is taking the same historical path as the steam engine, the railroad, the telegraph, the telephone, electric generators and the internal combustion engine. ....

Electricity, the telephone, the steam engine, the telegraph, the railroad and…..IT? In his HBR article, "IT Doesn't Matter," Nicholas Carr has stirred up quite a bit of controversy around IT's role as strategic business differentiator. He examines the evolution of IT and argues that it follows a pattern very similar to that of earlier technologies like railroads and electricity. At the beginning of their evolution, these technologies provided opportunities for competitive advantage. However, as they become more and more available – as they become ubiquitous – they transform into "commodity inputs," and lose their strategic differentiation capabilities. From a strategic viewpoint, they essentially become "invisible."

Carr distinguishes between proprietary technologies and what he calls infrastructural technologies. Proprietary technologies can provide a strategic advantage as long as they remain restricted through "physical limitations, intellectual property rights, high......

Nicholas Carr...