The Big Switch

Fülszöveg

science/technology
Praise for The Big Switch
"Highly interesting. Carr presents a persuasive historical analogy that conn-puter utilities will replace in-house connputer facilities as electrical utilities replaced in-house generators. . . . The Big Switch impressively discusses the positive and negative aspects of the coming World Wide Computer."
—Thomas P. Hughes, author of Human-Built World and American Genesis
"Nick Carr gets it right. There's a big switch coming. Personal computers are over; instead our lives will soon center around one planetary World Wide Computer. Cam lays out scores of reasons why he, and we, should dread this inevitable future. But even for those of us who can't wait for its arrival, this profile of the emerging machine by a very competent reporter is the kind of evidence every future-oriented person should read."
—Kevin Kelly, author of Out of Control and New Rules for the New Economy
Praise for Does IT Matter?
"Nicholas Carr has foisted an... Tovább

Fülszöveg

science/technology
Praise for The Big Switch
"Highly interesting. Carr presents a persuasive historical analogy that conn-puter utilities will replace in-house connputer facilities as electrical utilities replaced in-house generators. . . . The Big Switch impressively discusses the positive and negative aspects of the coming World Wide Computer."
—Thomas P. Hughes, author of Human-Built World and American Genesis
"Nick Carr gets it right. There's a big switch coming. Personal computers are over; instead our lives will soon center around one planetary World Wide Computer. Cam lays out scores of reasons why he, and we, should dread this inevitable future. But even for those of us who can't wait for its arrival, this profile of the emerging machine by a very competent reporter is the kind of evidence every future-oriented person should read."
—Kevin Kelly, author of Out of Control and New Rules for the New Economy
Praise for Does IT Matter?
"Nicholas Carr has foisted an existentialist debate on the mighty information-technology industry His argument is simple, powerful and yet also subtle."
—The Economist
"Carr lays out the simple truths of the economics of information technology in a lucid way, with cogent examples and clear analysis."
—Hal Varian, New Yorl< Times
"Does IT Matter? engages the imagination and the emotions, a rare combination in a business book." —Boston Globe
"Carr is single-handedly reshaping the way the business world thinks about information technology." -Chicago Sun-Times
His last book shook the high-tech
industry to its foundations. Now Nichoias Carr is back with The Big Switch, a sweeping and often disturbing look at how a new computer revoiution is reshaping business, society, and cuiture.
A hundred years ago, companies stopped generating their own power with steam engines and dynamos and plugged into the newly built electric grid. The cheap power pumped out by electric utilities didn't just change how businesses operate. It set off a chain reaction of economic and social transformations that brought the modern world into existence. Today, a similar revolution is under way. Hooked up to the Internet's global computing grid, massive information-processing plants are pumping data and software code into our homes and businesses. This time, It's computing that's turning Into a utility.
The shift is already remaking the computer Industry, bringing new competitors like Google and Salesforce.com to the fore, and threatening stalwarts like Microsoft and Dell. But the effects will reach much further Cheap, utility-supplied computing will ultimately change society as profoundly as cheap electricity did. We can already see the early effects—In the shift of control over media from institutions to individuals, in debates over the value of privacy, in the export of the jobs of knowledge workers, even in the growing concentration of wealth. As information utilities expand, the changes will only broaden, and their pace will only accelerate.
Nicholas Carr is the ideal guide to explain this historic upheaval. Writing In a lucid, engaging style, he weaves together history, economics, and technology to describe how and why computers are changing—and what It means for all of us.
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From the software business to the newspaper business, from job creation to community formation, from national defense to personal identity, The Big Switch provides a panoramic view of the new world being conjured from the circuits of the "World Wide Computer."
NICHOLAS CARR is the author of Does IT Matter? The former executive editor of the Harvard Business Review, he has written for the New York Times, the Financial Times, Wired, and many other publications. He lives outside Boston.
For more about this book, visit bigswitchbook.com. Vissza