In point cases certainly the PC is delivering tons of benefit, but across the whole spectrum of new PC's sold to business each year? No way.
Don't be silly, of course, it is hugely uneven, for most the computer is just a more efficient typewriter. That is fairly obvious to everyone, even to someone like Gilder. <g>
Computers are like brains, the average person uses 2 percent of it's capacity. But those that use it to capacity, do so in such a way that they swamp the hordes who don't. I would venture to guess that a single web server performs more work in an hour than the average person's computer in it's lifetime. A handful of Unix boxes lashed together over a WAN perform processes that took super computers hours to perform in the not too distant past.
You say you have so many years in consulting, have you ever examined POS systems in retail that are tied into enterprise wide back-end systems that are tied into their vendors systems over the web using XML? When you talk about increasing productivity with computers, I don't think you can simply look at the computers sitting on everyone's desk in the service sector and get an accurate view. I think you have to look at what they've done in manufacturing and design, retail, medical, etc. Things are possible in those sectors that were impossible just a short time ago.
I agree with you to a certain extent in that for a large number of businesses, the computer might in fact use up more than it gives back at this point. But those industries that can actually use the computational power, can use the network effect of all those computers communicating with one another, the benefits are higher, and by a large multiple, than what they were just five years ago. High enough that they overwhelm the under utilizers among us. |
