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February 14, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Did we pay the computing bill this month?
Will enterprises one day pay a monthly computing utility bill like they do with electricity now?
While all the elements are not yet in place, utility computing is the direction where IT shops need to go, argued author Nicholas Carr, at the Open Source Business Conference in San Francisco on Tuesday.
Currently, companies spend lots of money on wasted computing and storage resources, said Carr, who is perhaps best known for his Harvard Business Review article, "IT Doesn't Matter." Utility computing is the answer, according to Carr.
Reflecting on the rise of the electric power plant, Carr told the story of Samuel Insull, an early-20th century industrialist who promoted the concept of large power facilities and the electric utility.
"We're still waiting for the new Insull to come along on the supply-side model and really invent the IT utility, the IT power plant of the future," Carr said.
Will enterprises yield control of their IT to a large, faceless utility? I suspect this will go on to a limited degree. But companies still will want to keep their most critical systems and prized data in-house.
So I'm willing to meet Carr halfway.
Posted by Paul Krill on February 14, 2006 01:40 PM
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We are in the Managed Services (utility computing) business. Although, I believe utility computing will be a more affordable and secure way of managing networks and data; There will need to be so-inhouse. So meeting Mr. Carr halfway is very easy for us. That said, if I was on the other side of the fence and knew 40% of all data was human error I would cover my behind with a parallel remote service (data & natwork protection). Our service should be able to reduce IT costs 50-90% and we are not off-shore.
Posted by: Blair Smith at February 27, 2006 07:04 AMTOP STORIES
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