Proprietary technologies can be owned, actively and effectively, at times by a single company. For instance, a pharmaceutical holding a patent on a particular compound that is the basis for a drug is an example of proprietary technologies. Infrastructural technology on the other hand provides more value when shared rather than used by a single organization.
A company having all the rights to building railroads is an example of Infrastructural technology. This company can operate efficiently, but the effect to the economy is greater if the technology is shared and companies build railroads that can connect more buyers and sellers. Holding proprietary technologies, according to show more content.
In fact, IT is nothing like transport or electricity, and according to Ben Bernanke, we are in the early days of the IT revolution as computing speed and memory continue to increase – we’ve only scratch the surface3. Carr’s reasons why IT is a Commodity IT, according to Carr, has become affordable to all and therefore, it has been a commodity. He further argues that the use commodities do not lead to a completive advantage, and believes that IT has become commoditized for the following reasons:
- IT is highly replicable
- The arrival of the internet has accelerated the its commoditization
- IT is subject to rapid price deflation I agree with Carr’s assessment on the commoditization of IT to some degree.
For instance, it makes no sense for an organization to spend money in customizing a product when a similar product can be bought at a relatively good price. Organizations no longer write their application, they simple buy one that is available in the market (e,g. Microsoft Office). I do not agree with Carr when he states that organizations such as IBM and Microsoft recognize this trend and have position themselves as IT utilities companies as more companies replace customized application with generic ones. That the internet has increased the commoditization of IT by providing a perfect delivery channel for generic applications and more and more organization will obtain their IT requirement by purchasing fee-based web services .
