Despite nasysayers, IT Still breathes fresh air

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.