Position Paper on Relevance of Information Technology

Position Paper on Relevance of Information Technology

Information technology has undoubtedly become an indispensable part of our day to day lives. Both the articles considered for analysis projects the role of IT, from being the back-bone of commerce to handling huge volumes of data, as being highly significant in the modern world. Even though both Nicholas Carr and Erik Brynjolfsson are in agreement to the omnipresence of IT, their perception of the future of IT differs vastly. I am in accordance with the school of thought put forth by Nicholas Carr which believes that the strategic value of IT has reduced.

For all the inventions that had revolutionized the world there has been a point where these inventions become inevitable and hence highly available which leads the users to take the same for granted. In Carr's article he explains this phenomenon using the examples of railroads and electrical power systems. He classifies technology broadly into two categories - Proprietary and Infrastructural. It has been proved over the course of time that IT services which used to be available only to the elite few has become commoditized hence making it an infrastructural technology. An infrastructural technology used by a company doesn't give it any edge over their rivals but it's the proprietary technology that does. Hence the relevance of IT as a medium to fight competition has declined.

Mismanagement of data has been discussed in both the articles and that the company can gain only through effective handling of their data. While Brynjolfsson takes the example of Harrah to explain the advantages of IT, he also mentions about the ineffective usage of data at Harrah. According to Carr in most of the company's a large amount of storage space is being wasted by storing unused and unnecessary data. A large amount of expenses can be saved if these can companies have better data management systems instead of spending on buying more storage space.

Moore's law of integrating transistors to ICs has been mentioned in both the articles. Carr's perspective that the increase in processing power is inversely proportional to the price of computer functionality has been proved to be true. Most of the companies invest in new technologies when the existing versions can very well serve the purpose. Hence emphasis should be given to effectively managing and maintaining the existing technology rather than unnecessarily investing on more technology.

IT can be replicated very easily and is subject to rapid deflation making it a bad investment. It is always better to wait rather than rush to buy a new technology since a better version is always available before the newly purchased one is ready to use. Also it is very difficult to turn temporary technological advantages to enduring positioning ones. Hence more emphasis should be given in fixing the vulnerabilities rather than