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The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google | 
 enlarge | Author: Nicholas Carr
Publisher: W. W. Norton
Category: Book
List Price: $25.95
Buy New: $14.56
You Save: $11.39 (44%)
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Rating:  29 reviews
Sales Rank: 3819
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 276
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.3 x 1
ISBN: 0393062287
Dewey Decimal Number: 303.4834
EAN: 9780393062281
Publication Date: January 7, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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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.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 24 more reviews...
 Utility Computing December 27, 2007
Thomas E. Hayden (Detroit, MI United States)
29 out of 34 found this review helpful
In the Big Switch, Nicholas Carr walks readers through the history of electrification and computing. The early years of electrification were technologically limited - an electrical grid wasn't feasible and electricity was generated locally. Technology changed over time and electricity was rapidly centralized and networked. Power was produced remotely and delivered via a vast network of wires and cables. Over time, technology changed the way we live and do business.
Based on this historical context, he draws a metaphor between electrification and the current model of computing. We're coming from a client-server model to a new model, what Carr calls "Utility Computing". He argues, like electrification, this is mostly facilitated by advances in network technology. In a utility computing environment, some firms act as utilities and merely provide a platform, while others develop applications to run on this platform. He cites Amazon's EC2 (Elastic Computing Cloud) and S3 (Simple Storage) services as examples; Amazon provides a centralized utility that users can quickly and at marginal cost, tap in to and rapidly develop scalable applications.
To people in the computing industry, Carr isn't saying anything new. Many of us are in the middle of transitioning our own applications from an older client-server model to a web-based or utility based model. However, I think Carr does a great job at building the metaphor between electrification and computing. While, they are very different types of services, the historical context he clearly lays out shows how network effects can disrupt existing models of utility.
However, I think Carr should have spent more time discussing some of the social implications of this technological shift. Just like how electrification changed the way we socially interact, utility computing has the power to do the same. Utility computing affords more decentralization and standardization of application development. What kind of impact is this going to have on highly complex businesses and what are the implications for users and managers? Some would argue that the technological development of Groupware in the 1980s had major social impacts on social relations in a business context. Likewise, I think utility computing will have similar effects. I wish Carr would have approached some of these more complex social questions in further detail.
Otherwise, from someone working in the industry - I think Carr is right on the button and this book is definitely a "must read" for someone in the information industry.
Very insightful and an excellent read March 12, 2008
Joe Wikert (Fishers, IN)
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
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.
Interesting History plus Future Insight March 21, 2008
FGW (Upstate New York)
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
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.
Where the future is headed. February 20, 2008
Steven Jensen (San Mateo, CA United States)
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
This book was extremely interesting, not the least because it's right down the alley of what my company (NetSuite) does. I sat in my hotel room late one night devouring it. Despite all the ups and downs of the stock market, I believe Carr that we will continue to watch life change thanks to technology and the Internet in ways we can't even fathom right now, just as electricity changed things one hundred years ago. It was exiting to think about. And yet, as I read the second half of the book, I also realized that there was a dark side to the Internet, some of which I knew but some of what I hadn't considered. So on the other what's coming should make us "dread this inevitable future." It's exciting and just a little bit scary, but we should go forward with more excitement than fear.
A must read April 25, 2008
rdt
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
If it is true, it is something that needs to be read by anyone interested in this field.
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