Nicholas G. Carr

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Nicholas G. Carr (born 1959) is an American "business writer and speaker whose work centers on strategy, innovation, and technology." Carr "holds a B.A. from Dartmouth College and an M.A. from Harvard University". [1]

Carr wrote the 2004 book Does IT Matter? Information Technology and the Corrosion of Competitive Advantage (Harvard Business School Press) and the 2003 Harvard Business Review article "IT Doesn't Matter." In these works, he argued that the strategic importance of information technology in business has diminished as IT has become more commonplace, standardized and cheaper. His ideas roiled the information technology industry, spurring heated outcries from executives of Microsoft, Intel, Hewlett-Packard and other leading technology companies, although other commentators defended his position. In 2004, Carr published another influential article, "The End of Corporate Computing," in the MIT Sloan Management Review. In that article, he argued that in the future companies will purchase information technology as a utility service from outside suppliers. Earlier in his career, Carr served as executive editor and acting editor of the Harvard Business Review.

His essay titled "The Amorality of Web 2.0" was critical of collaborative, volunteer web-based information projects, and outlines the substantial differences between an established encyclopedia like Encyclopædia Britannica and Wikipedia. The essay also included many citations from existing Wikipedia articles and compares them to observable reality. This essay fueled further criticism by Andrew Orlowski and others.