In 2003, when Nicholas Carr penned the piece “IT Doesn’t Matter“, an overlooked definition of what he referred to as ‘infrastructural technologies‘ may now be, in 2012, unintentionally defining the relationship between IT and the organization. “The characteristics and economics of infrastructural technologies, whether railroads or telegraph lines or power generators, make it inevitable that they will be broadly shared – that they will become part of the general business infrastructure. In the earliest phases of its buildout, however, an infrastructural technology can take the form of a proprietary technology. As long as access to the technology is restricted – through physical limitations, intellectual property rights, high costs, or a lack of standards – a company can use it to gain advantages over rivals.” In
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