Nick Carr, bless him, has got back to his roots and is once again proclaiming that
IT doesn't matter--at least for SMBs. As with his first stab at the concept (which wasn't a new concept, incidentally--a lot of CIO/CTO types had been working toward outsourcing and minimizing their in-house IT base for some time before that) it's a bit over-broad; there are certainly segments of the SMB market which can still use technology successfully to gain competitive advantage (in some ways, this advantage can actually be magnified by the fact that the majority of SMBs are not managing their technology well) and therefore may need to manage it in-house. But on the whole, I absolutely agree that the tide has turned. If you're an SMB and you're not outsourcing the bulk of your IT needs, you will be in five or ten years, or you'll be sinking while your competition moves forward without that particular albatross around their neck.
It's not a transition you can simply make blindly, of course, it requires some thought and business analysis. Nick calls it exactly right when he attributes the continued reliance on in-house IT to habit, though. Not enough owners and managers are doing the analysis or putting the thought into it to realize that what they are doing with IT is not unique and doesn't require as many in-house assets as they are used to allocating for it. And a great many small business owners and managers don't have the experience to realize that the technical systems which they have put together, while convenient and customized to their business, are by no means the only effective way of doing things. There is a real difficulty in separating convenience and fear of change from the perception of strategic advantage. But most businesses don't need to care about the details of the implementation so much, just the quality of the service.
The reasons you shouldn't care are articulated far better in the original article that sparked Nick's, by Dave Berlind, which can be found
here. He's got a great quote, and it's one that you should be thinking about the next time you have a conversation with whoever you're getting your IT advice from these days:
But a real IT partner should say "Well, we'd be happy to sell you that storage, but perhaps there's a different way you should be thinking about your IT."
If you're not hearing that, or something like it, think about who you are relying on for purchasing advice these days. If they aren't at least pointing out that you have service-oriented alternatives, get a second opinion.
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