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Title: The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google
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Manufacturer: W. W. Norton
List Price: $25.95
Our Price: $15.04
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| Customer Reviews: |
| The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google by W. W. Norton A must read |
| If it is true, it is something that needs to be read by anyone interested in this field. |
| The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google by W. W. Norton Thought provoking book |
| This book illustrates the dangers of both ignoring technology and innovation as well as the challenges of adopting those innovations. The book is an easy and fast read. |
| The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google by W. W. Norton Interesting History plus Future Insight |
This book begins with an interesting history of the impact of electricity and then shifts to providing insight into where we're headed with Information Technology.
It's a quick, easy and worthwhile read.
It amazes me just how much has changed since my grandparents time, how rapidly things are changing today and how much faster they will be changing for my grandchildren. Will my grandchildren indeed be forced to decide to remain as humans as we know them or become post humans? Carr touches on this subject in his last chapter titled "iGod".
For insight into the coming era of post humans, read "The Singularity is Near" by Ray Kurzweil or just wait for the movie with the same title to be released later this year. |
| The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google by W. W. Norton Very insightful and an excellent read |
Nick Carr is the author who made a big splash a few years ago with the controversial book Does IT Matter? CIOs and computer geeks around the world were irritated by Carr's suggestion that IT no longer offers organizations a competitive advantage. Interesting concept, but I never bought into it either.
Don't let that turn you off from Carr's latest book, The Big Switch. I finished reading it earlier this week and found it to be a very interesting and well-researched work. Carr's premise this time is that the world of computers has much in common with the history and evolution of electricity. The Big Switch taught me a lot about development of that wall outlet we take for granted; although that might sound like a boring subject, Carr makes it engaging and really caused the light in my head to go on (no pun intended) with his analogy to the computer industry.
Have you ever had e-mail problems at your office? Maybe the main server goes down or some other unusual event occurs, causing you to lose your e-mail/web connection. It happens just about everywhere at some point. But have you noticed how reliable a service like Gmail is? I'm pretty sure that in the 5+ years I've been using Gmail I've never run into a service outage. Ever.
That's one of the points in The Big Switch: Just like when companies who used to generate their own power eventually switched over to central power stations as they started to appear, many of the services provided by your company's IT department (e-mail, storage, etc.) should be instead be outsourced and centralized for greater efficiencies and reliability.
It all comes down to having your organization focus on doing what it does best and outsourcing the rest. Sure, you might have a great IT department today, but can it really compete with the service levels, reliability and cost structure of some of the better outsource solutions? Even if this doesn't result in a dramatic, wholesale shift in the long term, it's clear that it makes a lot of sense for select applications and will continue to become a more viable approach going forward. Hmmm...maybe Carr was right all along and IT really doesn't matter!
Very good book. Highly recommended. |
| The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google by W. W. Norton Any collection strong in computer trends needs this. |
THE BIG SWITCH: REWIRING THE WORLD, FROM EDISON TO GOOGLE examines where computers are taking the world: while this could also have been featured in our Computer Shelf area, it's reviewed here for its wider importance to any general-interest collection strong in social trends and issues. It provides a historical analogy and analysis of changing methods of industry power, explaining how computing is undergoing a revolution akin to the modern electric grid where computing is moving from private PCs to massive data-sharing centers. Any collection strong in computer trends needs this.
Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch |
| The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google by W. W. Norton Product Description |
An eye-opening look at the new computer revolution and the coming transformation of our economy, society, and culture.
A hundred years ago, companies stopped producing their own power with steam engines and generators and plugged into the newly built electric grid. The cheap power pumped out by electric utilities not only changed how businesses operated but also brought the modern world into existence. Today a similar revolution is under way. Companies are dismantling their private computer systems and tapping into rich services delivered over the Internet. This time it's computing that's turning into a utility. The shift is already remaking the computer industry, bringing new competitors like Google to the fore and threatening traditional stalwarts like Microsoft and Dell. But the effects will reach much further. Cheap computing will ultimately change society as profoundly as cheap electricity did. In this lucid and compelling book, Nicholas Carr weaves together history, economics, and technology to explain why computing is changing—and what it means for all of us. |
