It Tecnologia De Información

Tarea 1. Resumen del artículo “IT doesn´t matter”. Rafael Ortiz Ordoñez. 128198

In 1968, a young Intel engineer named Ted Hoff found a way to put the circuits necessary for computer processing onto a tiny piece of silicon. Today, no one would dispute that information technology has become the backbone of commerce.

As IT'S power and presence have expanded, companies have come to view it as aresource ever more critical to their success, a fact clearly reflected in their spending habits. In 1965, according to a study by the U.S. Department of Commerce's Bureau of Economic Analysis, less than 5% of the capital expenditures of American companies went to information technology, and by the end of the decade it had hit nearly 50%.

Today, that has changed completely. Chief executives nowroutinely talk about the strategic value of information technology, about how they can use IT to gain a competitive edge, about the "digitization" of their business models.

The core functions of IT - data storage, data processing, and data transport - have become available and affordable to all. Their very power and presence have begun to transform them from potentially strategic resourcesinto commodity factors of production. They are becoming costs of doing business that must be paid by all but provide distinction to none.

Vanishing Advantage

A distinction needs to be made between proprietary technologies and what might be called infrastructural technologies. Proprietary technologies can be owned, actually or effectively, by a single company.
Proprietary technologies can bethe foundations for long term strategic advantages, enabling companies to reap higher profits than their rivals. Infrastructural technologies, in contrast, offer far more value when shared than when used in isolation.

The point is, however, that the technology's potential for differentiating one company from the pack -its strategic potential- inexorably declines as it becomes accessible andaffordable to all.

The Commoditization of IT

Although more complex and malleable than its predecessors, IT has all the hallmarks of an infrastructural technology. In fact, its mix of characteristics guarantees particularly rapid commoditization. IT is, first of all, a transport mechanism- it carries digital information just as railroads carry goods and power grids carry electricity.
But it's notjust the software that is replicable. Because most business activities and processes have come to the embedded in software, they become replicable, too. When companies buy a generic application, they buy a generic process as well. Both the cost savings and the interoperability benefits make the sacrifice of distinctiveness unavoidable. The arrival of the Internet has accelerated thecommoditization of IT by providing a perfect delivery channel for generic applications.

As with earlier infrastructural technologies, IT provided forward-looking companies many opportunities for competitive advantage early in its build out, when it could still be "owned" like a proprietary technology.

Some, like American Airlines with its Sabre reservation system, Federal Express with itspackage-tracking system, and Mobil Oil with its automated Speedpass payment system, used IT to gain particular operating or marketing advantages – to leapfrog the competition in one process or activity. Others, like Reuters with its 1970´S financial information network or, more recently, eBay with its Internet auctions, had superior insight into the way IT would fundamentally change an industry and were able tostake out commanding positions.

While no one can say precisely when the build out of an infrastructural technology has concluded, there are many signs that the IT build out is much closer to its end than its beginning. First, IT's power is outstripping most of the business needs it fulfills. Second, the price of essential IT functionality has dropped to the point where it is more or less...