Analyse It Doesn’t Matter by Nicolas G. Carr / Metcalfe’s Law and Network Effects by H. Mendelson

1. “IT Doesn’t Matter” by Nicolas G. Carr

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The author focuses on the IT technologies, implying that it used to represent an opportunity of competitive advantages during its buildout phase, until this opportunity reaches an end when it becomes literally an infrastructural technology.

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First the author makes it clear that IT technologies has become a “backbone of commerce” regarding the rise of companies spending in this sector and its incorporation either in the production process or in the decision.

Then the author emphasizes the parallel between the majors’ innovations that provoked industrials revolution such as the mobility or energy industry. He argues that IT technologies follow the same model.

• The fundamental innovation : the microprocessor

• The competitive race : the buildout phase

• The maturity : infrastructural technology

This model mainly introduced by kondratiev, has been illustrated by the author regarding the IT technologies.

As a matter of fact, the invention of the microprocessor has given the start for companies and according to the author those that have been able to benefit from this revolution have reached one of the following points.

• Developing with efficiency proprietary technologies.

• Being among the first to tap into the technology because of a better insight.

• Being among the first to exploit one of the potential that offer the technology.

However “when a resource becomes essential to competition but inconsequential to strategy, the risks it creates become more important than the advantage it provides”. The author remarks that the gold rush has quickly reached an end because of the followings facts he raises in its argumentation.

• Availability, affordability and standardization of the technology.

• More advantages of being interconnected than isolated.

• Burst of the investment bubble

• Needs of facilities more than...