Twilight Of The Pc Era?

Nicholas Carr seems an unlikely candidate for the technology world's Public Enemy No. 1. A mild-mannered 44-year-old magazine editor and freelance writer, he's spent five years laboring for the Harvard Business Review, not exactly a hotbed of bomb-throwers. But now he finds himself branded a wild-eyed heretic and a threat to the underpinnings of the entire economy. His offense? Penning a 12-page article about the state of information-technology (IT) investment in the corporate world. Why has it jacked up the aggregate blood pressure in Armonk, N.Y., Silicon Valley, Calif., and Redmond, Wash.? Consider the title: "IT Doesn't Matter."

Doesn't matter? Tech consultants have been burned at the stake, even banned from the golf course, for less. Ever since 1979, when Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston invented the electronic spreadsheet--and changed the way people in the business world worked--the unshakable wisdom in the corridors of commerce has been that nothing could possibly matter more than IT.

As personal computers landed on every desk, the Internet connected everything and an army of mobile devices made every shard of data accessible at any time, there seemed no reason to question the equation that a buck spent on technology would result in a bankroll soon thereafter. And with Moore's Law (which propounds that every 18 months computer power doubles at no extra cost) still going strong, the reigning assumption is that such alchemy will only continue.

Carr begs to differ, claiming, in essence, that the innovations of the last couple of decades have succeeded too well--at least from the point of view of those peddling software. The very ubiquity of computer power makes it unremarkable, he says, and no longer offers a strategic advantage to companies employing it. The big innovations are over, the low-hanging fruit has been picked and "the IT buildout is much closer to its end than its beginning," he writes. More and more, technology that once seemed unique has now been commoditized, and can be bargained for and bought in bulk like office furniture and paper clips. And in a suggestion that chills the soul of an industry based on first-movers and constant upgrades, he advises companies to spend less. "Follow, don't lead," he cautions.

When Carr's article appeared in May, "it was greeted with horror here [in California]," says economist W. Brian Arthur. "It was like saying that Beethoven can't play piano." And the outrage continues. Shane Robison, chief strategist of HP, tells of a meeting with corporate information officers on its advisory board last month. "They were wrapped around the axle by that article," he says. Peter Godfrey, the CTO of 3M, has a typical response: "It's utter nonsense--so far from the truth that it's laughable."

During Microsoft's analyst meeting last summer, Bill Gates was only the first of a parade of executives who, before PowerPointing their plans for an innovation-studded future, felt compelled to issue a Soviet-style repudiation of Carr-think. ("Hogwash!" cried CEO Steve Ballmer.) But Gates and the rest know that it isn't just the word processor (on an iMac!) of a lone bespectacled observer that he has to worry about. Carr's complaint is only one sign that a dangerous idea is afoot in the land, a philosophy of "good enough" when it comes to high tech. In a number of ways, the perpetual Saturday-night blowout in the tech world suddenly looks like Sunday Morning Coming Down. Here are some dispiriting signs: