Bryan Adams
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The industrial age brought forth the conceptualization of power production as a purchasable utility, rather than a function of corporate generation. Similarly, information technology is becoming less of an asset in the form of purchased software and physical material, than it is becoming a utility purchased from vendors. Very simply, IT is shifting away from being an asset companies own to a service they buy.
The problem is that there is a massive over investment in information technology. The amount of money that is being invested in data centers and individual components, which can be characterized by the personal computer, is inherently unnecessary. The problem is that the current standard for networking and data center design creates a waste of financial and managerial power. People in power are distracted by doing real business when time must be focused on maintaining current information technology systems. Additionally, current assets purchased from vendors are being outstandingly under utilized. This includes all levels of technology, from an employee’s desk computer which may utilize only a fraction of its capabilities, to companies expensive servers which may be used at only 10 to 35 percent capacity.
The answer to over scaled and ineffective data centers is centralized supply in the form of a utility. Large scale utility computing is rapidly becoming a viable reality. IBM, Hewlit-Packard, and Electronic Data Systems are leading the way in offering computing power and information technologies as a resource purchased by a vendor. Virtualization, grid computing, and web services are key. Virtualization allows for applications to be run ‘everywhere’ despite platform or OS differences. Grid computing allows a large number of hardware components to act as a single device. Web services are intended to standardize interfaces between applications. The entire purpose of this IT movement is to turn disjoined systems into unified large scale infrastructures. The future of corporate appears doomed as computing becomes utility provided by big companies who provide an outstanding competitive edge to firms who utilize their services.
I think that this is the perfect article for this class. If we intend to learn about relevant and emerging technologies than understanding corporate innovations is essential. Essentially, we can see that there is a trend in the information technology world and this trend may change the way individuals perceive computing. My first thought is on what scale utility is computing feasible. Obviously, on a large scale, firm wide scale it is possible, but what about in a home? If a home has 3 personal computers would a centralized network with only pertinent software and necessary computing capacity reduce cost or increase functionality on a small scale. I can see that the cost of personal computers is low and the cost of such integrated IT systems are high but the unpredictability of the future makes me question all of our current IT related standards.
On a more relevant note, I think it is important to recognize the competitive edge ‘ending cooperate computing’ may provide a firm. Thus, firms must now decide how and when to take advantage of new technological opportunity. Perhaps those who are first to utilize these utilities will gain immensely, or they might suffer from emerging technologes that bring hardship. The best part of this article is knowing a new production possibility frontier may exist due to this information technology transition.
Craig Sugiyama
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The article End of Corporate Computing written by Nicolas Carr is a very important one to understand because it is a prediction on what he believes will happen with our information technologies.
He first starts his article off with a parallel of IT to the revolution of electrification. He talks about how companies had to produce their own power because of the steep prices they would have had to pay from small providers. Innovation and central distribution led to these small utility companies being able to provide current for cheaper and to a broader amount of people. Companies now could save money and focus their revenues on their production. Carr then goes to talk about the shift in IT is happening the way the shift in electricity happened. Companies are now going to focus more on where they can buy this computing service from rather than a personal asset they must maintain.
Carr believes that if IT can be more of a “centralized” utility service then it will have a huge impact on companies. He believes that the companies such as IBM and Google will be the winners. They will be the ones providing these information technologies. Once corporate computing is slowly taken over by these large companies the smaller ones will be able to focus on their actual business not their IT infrastructure. Within the next five years it is predicted that companies will be buying computing not computers.
I thought this article was very interesting in the fact that IT computing may change from something that is produced within a company to one that is purchased from a specialized provider. I think it is very important to understand the economic potential that this concept Carr talks about has. I believe that the end of corporate computing means the beginning of large scale centralized infrastructures who will provide these services needed to allow companies to focus more on their direct activities.
14 comments:
This change from corporate to utility computing is an important one to mention, because it is coming. Its not if but when and companies such as IBM, HP and SUN are already involved in this. It would also be interesting to address the issues of connectivity , because not everyone is connected the same as electricity. In many parts of the world there are people without electricity and so what would happen to them? I think issues such as this should first be addressed so that the whole world could be encompased and utility computing can be more sucessful that corporate computing has been. Another point worth mentioning is that Carr talks about this man/person/christ like that will come and take care of creating this utility computing when in fact its groups that are working to employ these changes and it will be team work that will lead corporate to utility computing.
This is an extremely interesting topic. It seems to be a big waste for each medium to large company to have its own IT department, wasting time, resources, and money. It makes a lot of sense to have IT centers that outsource those services. Like the transition from companies using their private power to utility companies, this transition would take a long time because it is such a fundamental shift in the way of operating a company.
I liked the auther's example of the shift in electricity service from being an asset to a service, and honestly the IT service shift wouldn't have made sense to me without that example.
And I believe that internet innovation companies such as Google and Amazon will be the leader of providing this shifted service.
I agree with what Bryan said about recognizing the competitive edge in a firm and that "firms must now decide how and when to take advantage of new technological opportunity." Using the advantage of new technology to save time and money by outsourcing is something that makes more sense in the long run.
Kim McNeely
I agree with Bryan’s comment that too much money is being spent on IT when it isn’t always necessary. Companies may invest a lot of money into a certain technology and then not end up using it to its full capacity. I think a firm’s ability to decide when it would be a good idea to invest in new IT is essential for success.
There was a few things that struck me about this article. First I was noticing how the flatteners, especially the increase of fiber optics, have enabled this shift to Utility computing. Another thing I noticed was a similarity to the idea of web 2.0 of data as the next intel inside. It seems the company that can gain customers of utility computing will be the traffic guards of information which givens them a very important power seat. Lastly this article made me think of the economics of IT. Just like in other areas of business as the market grows, in order to be more efficient, we move from diversity to specialization. The demand is so great for computing power now days that it has become profitable to specialize in this area. Focusing on utility computing alone allows companies achieve goals much more efficiently.
WSU is a good example of IT resources being wasted and excess spending. My experience working on campus has shown me that WSU (just like many government-run entities) is not on the cutting edge of IT, and isn't concerned with cutting back on spending. I wonder how many years it will take for WSU, and other universities, to embrace the thought of IT as a utility. I would like to see it happen.
I liked this article a lot. I was always under the impression that almost all companies had an internal IT section. I never thought about the possibilities of outside IT providers. This new emerging technology is very interesting. I think more and more companies will soon turn to this new technology because it will save them a lot of time and money.
Darcy Crowell:
It weird to think that the PC is losing value and people today are calling it "a ridiculous device." I can remember when having your own personal computer was a big deal, it actually sped up the development of productivity. However, today businesses are no longer in demand for desktop computers and it is weakening as utility computing becomes widespread. It has turned into a security liability for hackers.
Sara Supple- I thought the history behind electricity that the article discussed was pretty interesting, but I found a quote about company's wasted resources to really stand out: "...between 50% and 60% of a typical company’s data storage capacity
is wasted." It seems odd to me that companies would be willing to waste so much of their resources. I also liked the author's comment that utility computing was like a disruptive innovation, soon being able to pose a threat to big companies like Microsoft.
This article was very interesting and ties in with this class very well. I really enjoyed reading it. THe article basically forcasts the changes coming about in the MIS feild. There will be a shift from IT as an asset to IT as a service. This is useful information for those of us that plan on going into the MIS feild. The example of electricity and how it changed the industry.
Robert Clausen
The comparisons that were made to electricity really helped to prove the authors point that IT will soon be switched from private to a utility. Because the cost can be lower, its a little surprising that the change hasn't fully happened. I think once a few companies emerge as a new IT utility, it will be adopted by everyone.
The new direction that companies are heading in terms of IT development is very interesting. This article seems to tie in all of the important parts of the class. This article seems to deal a lot with the notion of free and web 2.0. The cost of IT storage and actual hardware has went basically to zero. This article also shows how companies are using the web as a platform which is another concept discussed in web 2.0.
Web technology should be treated as a utility because of the amount of impact it has on our daily lives. Supplying internet as a utility is a better use of resources, time, and creates a better product.
Perhaps the only problem is that the internet is relatively unstable; but the way the internet is handled is already as a utility. It's just a matter of working out the owernship details.
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