More praise for Does IT Matter?:
"Companies around the world have spent billions of dollars on information technology, yet in most cases this investment has failed to produce any genuine competitive advantage. In his timely and provocative book, Nicholas Carr explains why this is so, and challenges business leaders to take a more prudent and practical view of the role of IT in business success."
–Gary Hamel, Author, Leading the Revolution
"This is an important and insightful book, which will have a significant impact on how corporations think about IT and its role in business strategy. A must-read for both CIOs and CEOs."
–Tony Comper, Chairman and CEO, BMO Financial
"Nicholas Carr forces us to reexamine some of our most basic assumptions about IT and business value. You may not agree with his perspective, but that is almost beside the point. He challenges all of us to be clearer about where the value of IT resides. Critical business choices and actions hinge upon the outcome of this debate."
–John Hagel, Author, Outside the Box
The "Bombshell" Book that Changed the Way Businesses Think About Computers
"Nicholas Carr has foisted an existentialist debate on the mighty information-technology industry . . . His argument is simple, powerful and yet also subtle." -The Economist
"Carr lays out the simple truths of the economics of information technology in a lucid way, with cogent examples and clear analysis." -Hal Varian, New York Times
"Carr [has] performed a service in puncturing some of the starry-eyed and self-serving cant of industry insiders. " -Steven Levy, Newsweek
"Does IT Matter? engages the imagination and the emotions, a rare combination in a business book." -Boston Globe
"Coolly written [and] intellectually engaging." -John Gapper, Financial Times
"Hugely enjoyable." -Financial Review
"Does IT Matter? will give executives and managers a way to sift through the next wave of tech hype." -Rob Hof, Business Week
"Carr is . . . singlehandedly reshaping the way the business world thinks about information technology. " -Chicago Sun-Times
"An important, thought-provoking reconsideration of the role of IT in the economy and within companies." -Steve Lohr, Strategy & Business
"Widely challenged when they appeared, Mr. Carr's arguments now fairly accurately describe today's tech landscape, where corporate computing is widely viewed as a commodity or a utility." -Wall Street Journal
"IT thinking rarely gets a contribution of this caliber. Read it." -eWeek
"Hundreds of books and hundreds of thousands of articles have been written in the past decade extolling the huge benefits that have been reaped, or will be reaped, from IT. Very few of these are as clearly written, or as rooted in common sense, as Does IT Matter? " -Information Age
"What Carr offers is reaffirmation of business reality as a tonic for hyperbolic marketing." -Canadian Business
"Full of useful and interesting information and based on impressive, documented scholarship." -Ubiquity
"Does IT Matter? deserves a careful reading, especially by technophiles who might initially take the message too personally. Carr has done an excellent job in bringing perspective to the clouded world of IT, whether you share his opinions or not." -ManyWorlds.com
"A thoughtful book that will force managers to rethink the role of IT in modern organizations." -Government Finance Review
"Carr's expanded arguments make a good case for managing IT to the goals he describes. And even if you don't agree with him, your boss very well might." -CIO Insight
"It does matter whether or not you read Does IT Matter?" -Industry Week
A book that will change the way you think about technology and business strategy, Does IT Matter? Information Technology and the Corrosion of Competitive Advantage expands and extends the arguments in Nicholas Carr's explosive 2003 Harvard Business Review article "IT Doesn't Matter." Does IT Matter? explains how technological, economic, and competitive forces are combining to transform the role information technology plays in business, with profound implications for IT management and investment as well as strategy and organization. Drawing on rich historical and contemporary examples, it lays bare the romantic myths that have come to surround computer hardware, software, and networks, and it provides practical advice for how companies can capitalize on the commoditization of IT.
Table of Contents
Preface: The Great Debate
1. Technological Transformations
The Rise of a New Business Infrastructure
2. Laying Tracks
The Nature and Evolution of Infrastructural Technologies
3. An Almost Perfect Commodity
The Fate of Computer Hardware and Software
4. Vanishing Advantage
Information Technology's Changing Role in Business
5. The Universal Strategy Solvent
The IT Infrastructure's Corrosive Effect on Traditional Advantages
6. Managing the Money Pit
New Imperatives for IT Investment and Management
7. A Dream of Wonderful Machines
The Reading, and Misreading, of Technological Change
Notes and Bibliography
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