IT Doesnt Matter

1
IT Doesnt Matter

• GE, Dell, Intel, GM, and Others The Competitive
  Advantage of Information Technology

2
Harvard Business Review

• May 2003, Article published
• IT Doesnt Matter by Nicholas Carr.

3
Harvard Business Review

• IT follows a similar pattern as to earlier
  technologies like railroads electric power. At
  first they open opportunities for forward-looking
  companies to gain strong competitive advantage.
  But as availability increases and their cost
  decreases they become commodity inputs. From a
  strategic point they become invisible, no longer
  matter.

4
Jeff Immelt, CEO

• QHow important is information technology to
  GE?
• A Its imperative.

5
Michael Dell, CEO

• Q Whats your take on Nick Carrs thesis that
  technology no longer gives corporate buyers a
  competitive advantage?
• A Just about anything in business can be either
  a sinkhole or a competitive advantage if you do
  it really, really bad or you do it really, really
  well.

6
Do you agree with the argument made by Nicholas
Carr to support his position that IT no longer
gives companies a competitive advantage? Why or
why not?

• DISAGREE!!!!

7
Do you agree with the argument made by the
business leaders in this case in support of the
competitive advantage that IT can provide to a
business? Why or why not?

• AGREE!!!!

8
What are several ways that IT could provide a
competitive advantage to a business?

9
Inventory Replenishment System

• Innovation- item sold, message sent to supplier,
  include replacement in next shipment.
• Differentiate-inventory control, unheard of in
  general merchandise retailing
• Promote Growth-expanding its capacity to provide
  goods and services
• Develop Alliances-linked business and customers
  with the process Procter Gamble automatically
  replenishes Wal-Marts stock of all PG products.
  
• Cost Leadership- operational efficiency, it could
  offer lower cost of goods
• Competitive Strategies

10
Whats New Today?

• Currently General Electric is displaying a form
  of renewable energy at Nextfest. The energy on
  display is a kind of solar cell that is being
  used to split the water molecule into its
  separate gas forms. This is then recombined in a
  fuel cell which converts it to electricity.

11

• The following are just a few of the patents that
  Dell has received for its products and
  innovations
• Translator for use in an Automated Order Entry
  System
• Method for Manufacturing Products According to
  Customer Orders
• Preventing duplication of the data in reference
  resource for XML page generation
• Method and system for communicating between
  supplier and customer devices

12
Intel Corporation

• The Challenge Systems such as Napster showed
  the potential of the peer-to-peer (P2P) approach
  to building large-scale Internet applications.
  Distributed hash tables (DHTs)-an improved design
  for building scalable, robust P2P systems-make it
  easy to spread an application across hundreds (or
  millions) of Internet hosts, and reap
  availability and system capacity benefits. But
  until recently, developers had to deploy an
  application-specific DHT for every DHT-based
  application they created. That required access to
  a large number of distributed computers that must
  be managed 24/7-a requirement few developers
  could meet.
• 1 http//www.intel.com/research/systems_research
  .htmopendht

13
Intel Corporation
14
Intel Corporation

• The Solution Intel funded and developed a
  publicly accessible, shared DHT service called
  Open DHT, with the goal of making it easy to
  develop distributed applications. Developers no
  longer need to deploy a DHT for every application
  they create. Instead, they can access and use
  Open DHT anytime, from any computer, for any
  application. The system offers a simple put and
  get interface, incorporates security features,
  and is designed to allocate available storage
  fairly across active clients. 1
• 1 http//www.intel.com/research/systems_researc
  h.htmopendht

15

• Microsoft Corp. is putting the social into
  digital music, starting this holiday. Today the
  company announced that the Zune digital media
  player and online service will be available to
  consumers in the U.S. on Nov. 14, 2006, just in
  time for the holidays. The Zune device will
  retail for 249.99 U.S. (ERP) and will create new
  ways for entertainment fans to connect and share
  media experiences device-to-device through the
  use of wireless technology and new software
  scenarios.2
• 2 http//www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2006
  /sep06/09-28ZunePricingAvailabilityPR.mspx

16

• The study used temperatures around the world
  taken during the last century. Scientists
  concluded that these data showed the Earth has
  been warming at the remarkably rapid rate of
  approximately .36 Fahrenheit (0.2 Celsius) per
  decade for the past 30 years. "This evidence
  implies that we are getting close to dangerous
  levels of human-made pollution," said Hansen. In
  recent decades, human-made greenhouse gases have
  become the largest climate change factor.
  Greenhouse gases trap heat in the Earth's
  atmosphere and warm the surface. Some greenhouse
  gases, which include water vapor, carbon dioxide,
  methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone, occur
  naturally, while others are due to human
  activities.3
• 3http//www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/wo
  rld_warmth.html

17
Q A