On Internet Business

Internet Business and the Cloud

Posted by Michael under Business Growth, Search

A must read for all internet entrepreneurs is Nick Carr’s, The Big Switch.

The Big Switch  can be fairly divided into two sections. The first section draws a parallel relationship between the 19th century electricity utilities of America and today’s computing industry. In the second section, Carr discusses the impact of the internet on business, society and culture.

Carr asserts that the business model, that persuaded companies to generate and use electricity as a ‘Utility’ service, would drive us towards a ‘Computing Utility’. Computing Utility i.e., Software virtualisation. Data Centre consolidation, IP connectivity, ITIL processes, hardware standardisation, and Shared IT Services model is gaining popularity among entrepreneurs and the Computing Utility model is looking more and more likely to become the dominant model of the future..

 In the Second section he deals with how computers are used and how they are facilitating the transformation of our society. In his own words:

 ”In the years ahead, more and more of the information-processing tasks that we rely on, at home and at work, will be handled by big data centres located out on the Internet. The nature and economics of computing will change as dramatically as the nature and economics of mechanical power changed with the rise of electric utilities in the early years of the last century. The consequences for society – for the way we live, work, learn, communicate, entertain ourselves, and even think – promise to be equally profound. If the electric dynamo was the machine that fashioned twentieth century society – that made us who we are – the information dynamo is the machine that will fashion the new society of the twenty-first century”.

 As in his previous book, Does IT Matter, Information Technology is represented as an essential commodity that is not sufficient for a competitive advantage. In The Big Switch, he insists that the cloud computing or computing utility has great potential to change the way IT products are used and ultimately our society and business.

 A central idea presented in the book is an unexpected polarization and inequality in the society that is arisen as a result of the internet.

 In The Big Switch, Carr has presented his ideas very thoughtfully and carefully in a way that provokes readers to think about the consequences of using the internet.

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