The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google’

On January 29th in the Financial Times "Digital Business" section, there was an article by Nicholas Carr "A revolution is taking shape".

Nicholas Carr is the author of ‘The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google’.

In the article he says primarily:

a)"What is happening to computing today is a revolution, the biggest upheaval since the invention of the PC in the 1970s".

b)"As information utilities grow in size and sophistication, the changes to business and society – and to ourselves – will only broaden. And their pace will only accelerate"...."In the long run, the IT department is unlikely to survive, at least not in its familiar form".

c) "The time of Gates and the other great software programmers who wrote the code of the PC age has come to an end. The future of computing belongs to the new utilitarians."

His book "The Big Switch:" has received serveral comments from the press and industry commentators, which can be read at Carr´s own blog description of his book.

Furthermore on his book:

Gigam (who is 31st most popular blog) "The Big Switch Is a Good Thing" - "But Carr’s arguments left me unconvinced that the big switch is a bad thing. Instead of considering the job market as a whole, he focuses narrowly on the publishing and broadcasting industry. And he doesn’t offer backup to the assertion that income inequality is always and obviously bad. Increasing income inequality can mask gains in well-being from factors other than money, and the social, participatory web arriving as part of the switch to utility computing offers great riches to the masses"

In a recent interview, Wired called Carr “Captain Buzzkill.” But Carr’s book didn’t kill my techno-utopian buzz, and it made for an enjoyable and thought-provoking read. I came away with two ideas: first, the book “The Big Switch” is — as I expected from having read Carr’s blog — well-researched, well-written, and well-filled with ideas designed to annoy. Second, the big switch to a global web computer that Carr identifies is a good thing — at least insofar as it brings to the many the numerous experiences and opportunities previously only reserved for the few.

What do you think?