The Big Switch

In his book Does IT Matter?, Nicholas Carr controversially argued that the vast amount of money spent by enterprises on IT has failed to lead to competitive advantage. In The Big Switch, he returns to the changing role played by IT in the modern business, and makes some stark and uncomfortable predictions about the direction in which developments in technology are taking us.

In the first part of the book, Carr offers a potted history of the electricity industry. In it he shows how an entrepreneur called Samuel Insull revolutionised the industry by building central generators serving a wide area to replace the individual generators built by manufacturers to provide electricity for their factories.

While this brought huge efficiency benefits to industry, it also had some less benign consequences, says Carr: electrical appliances such as washing machines and vacuum cleaners, for example, effectively trapped women in the role of homemakers.

The analogy with IT is clear, says Carr. One day, the supply of computing services, like the supply of electrical power, will be a utility business. Organisations will no longer operate datacentres and run expensive software; instead, they will rent their computing facilities and functions from a central source.

It’s a convincing argument – the trend is already well under way – but it’s the second part of the book that really grips. Carr outlines a pessimistic, even dystopian, vision of the new world of utility computing, or what he refers to as the “World Wide Computer”.

Carr dismisses the perception of the internet as a democratising and levelling force, arguing that it offers greater potential for control and suppression of freedom. Most people willingly give out personal information on blogs, e-commerce and social networking sites, and don’t realise how easy it is for government agencies or corporates to build up a picture of our activities. People aren’t aware that search engines keep a record of their searches, and therefore their interests and obsessions. There are already signs that the information people freely give away is being used in ways that many would find sinister.

Carr backs his argument with compelling evidence. In a brilliant epilogue, he recalls what was lost in the switch from candlelight to electric light. We are already in danger, he argues, of losing a great deal more when we willingly submit to the power of the World Wide Computer.

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