To All, Waxing Macroeconomic about the tech area. Set your snooze alarm before reading this -g-:
The most recent drop in productivity growth backs my long term theme about technology in the workplace. Investments in Information Technology have not proven nearly as productive as capital expenditures in other areas and their emphasis in today's market place is the cause of the lower productivity growth, not a reason for celebration as most tech bulls claim.
However, we have to realize that we are talking about a lower growth rate in productivity, not a negative growth rate. Tech investments make the workplace more productive. But not as much as other cap ex. of similar amounts and certainly not as much as they should. The claims for tech investment, even exaggerated by down sizing, the fact that investors don't debit cos. for writeoffs (big mistakes from the past) any more, debt to stock buyback to option scams that create lower nominal pay per employee, just haven't come anywhere near fulfilling their promise.
The problems are simple and laid out very well in the Landauer book, "The Trouble With Computers." Computers have three problems with increasing productivity: 1. They cost too much. 2. They are not useful enough. and 3. They are not usable enough.
#1 is being addressed by the market right now and we are seeing pc prices crashing down in price. There is no longer a $4000 top of the line model, which, in many ways, is just as revolutionary as the fact that there are so many sub-$1000 models. In time, price will take care of itself. Businesses, which are now the main customers, simply will not buy new models forever when they don't carry their weight as well as dollars spent in other areas.
#2 and #3 still need a lot of work. Unfortunately, any time you mention this to somebody, you end up talking to a computer geek who tells you you are a luddite. In other words, we have an industry well aware of its potential, and the potential is tremendous, but not aware of or unwilling to do anything about its major problems. So, when few buy the new hot machine, the boxmakers and their component suppliers blame everyone but their own products. Until we get some pc boxmakers who really understand customer needs, this now fairly saturated part of the economy will become more and more a replacement market. That isn't a bad thing. The auto market has gotten fairly large and it is a replacement market. PCs are not nearly that saturated yet. But if the muckety-mucks don't do something, especially with the Y2K problem about to make spending decisions for low-productivity boxes more problematic, this could be the mother of all tech meltdowns. There is still time for change, but, outside of the software vendors, I don't see much.
And, of course, the stock prices are way too high. -g- MB |
