Businesses currently spend $2 trillion each year on Information Technology (IT),
often times accounting for 50-percent of their annual capital expenditures
(IT spending accounted for 5-percent of capital expenditures in 1965, 15-percent in the early 80s, and 30-percent in the early 90s).
Many companies make these investments in IT with the hope that they will afford them a strategic advantage over their competitors. Mr. Carr proposes that IT has ceased to be the strategic advantage creator that it once was and that companies need to sit up and take notice of this fact before its too late.
Why is IT no longer the creator-and-sustainer of strategic advantage? Because,
Mr. Carr proffers, IT has become a commodity and no commodity in history has allowed a business to create a competitive advantage.