Despite nasysayers, IT Still breathes fresh air

Zatni Arbi, Columnist, Jakarta

"IT doesn't matter." That is the title of a Harvard Business Review article that spurred a lot of discussion in the industry.

It was published more than a year ago. In the article, the writer, Nicholas Carr, contended that, among other things, because the information technology was already commoditized, it could no longer be used as a competitive weapon as in the 1980s.

Let's see. Comdex Las Vegas used to be the biggest IT event in the world. All the cab drivers in the city-that-never-sleeps used to look forward to November, when finding a hotel room would be as difficult as finding a government official who had never received a bribe due to the overflowing number of visitors.

This year, it has been announced, there will be no Comdex Las Vegas. There is simply not enough interest to justify the tremendous cost of organizing it.

When a bank installed dozens of self-service kiosks to attract more customers, other banks could simply buy exactly the same terminals and place them in similarly strategic locations. In other circumstances, an independent company might provide the kiosks and link them to a number of smaller banks that could not afford to buy, install and maintain their own kiosks.

Once this happens, the kiosks may lose their competitive edge.

So, is the IT industry heading downhill? A good friend, also an IT columnist, said to me about a year ago how he believed the IT world was getting increasingly dull. "There have been no real breakthrough, earth-shattering or game-changing new technologies lately," he said.

Well, not entirely true. So far, Moore's Law -- that the power of the microchip doubles every 18 to 24 months -- still holds true. OK, I accept: the Pentium 4 processor seems to have stuck at 3.4 GHz, but it does not mean that the capabilities of the processor in its totality have not increased.

Recently, both Intel and AMD announced their dual-core processors aimed at the server and high-end desktop markets. The dual-core processor technology is meant to bridge the transition to 64-bit computing.

Undoubtedly, new technologies are constantly being invented in various labs around the world. Only a small fraction of them find their way into real-life applications. That is just the nature of invention.

We may not be aware of it, but the use of IT has silently invaded our lives, even here in Indonesia where we always lament poor IT infrastructure.

Today, for example, we can enroll our children at a state school, online. With this facility, we no longer have to visit each of our favorite schools to make sure that our children will be admitted there. That is a big step that we should really appreciate.

A lot of us have been enjoying mobile banking and Internet banking services offered by our banks.

Have you checked the website of your power company to find out the amount of your electricity bill? For some time now I have been doing it at www.pln.co.id. All I need to do is enter my PIN, which is printed on my electricity bill.

Come to think of it, there is actually no reason why PT Telkom could not provide the same service to its subscribers -- except that a Web-based billing statement would drive people away from using its 109 number, which is a paid-for service.

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is another application of technology that could be developed much further. It will change the way people manage their inventories. It will help law enforcers track the whereabouts of ex-criminals who have just been released into the community, make sure police guns are not used to rob bank customers instead of protecting them, etc.

The Fall Comdex in Las Vegas may no longer attract huge crowds as it did in 1995 -- the only time I was lucky enough to attend it. But, do not forget that, back then, finding information on the latest products on the Internet was not as easy as it is now.

Today, we no longer have to be there at CeBIT, Comdex Asia or any other world-scale IT exhibitions. All we have to do is read the reports written by the journalists and analysts who have been there -- and save the soles of our shoes -- and we will at least have some idea of what is currently available. So, the declining number of visitors to these events is not an indicator that IT does not matter anymore.

What may be true is that the importance has shifted from the technology to its application, to the business processes that can be improved with the support of the technology. This, in turn, requires more creative thinking. A lot of new opportunities are waiting to be tapped. And, for sure, IT still matters.