So Much for Generic Technology

Productivity was up last week, Dell's numbers were down. And Apple's are way up. All signs point to a resurgence of high-tech innovation as a driving force for economic expansion. Witness the rise in Silicon Valley commercial real estate and occupancy rates.

You can take it as a given that the opportunities of commoditization have been reached.

Ever since the bubble burst, the way most people made money in tech has been by being boring. It is becoming clearer now that boredom only takes you so far. Sooner or later, you can't drive real growth by just doing the same old things more efficiently. You have to be dramatically different -- or different dramatically.

Executive Agenda is the online magazine for A.T. Kearney. This month features a cover story called Spending Smarter: Rebalancing the IT Budget. It pretty much sums up in one convenient package all the things IT managers can do to bring technology costs to the minimum. It's great advice for IT managers trying to save money. But there is a big lesson also for technology companies looking to make money from IT managers.

You can take it as a given that the opportunities of commoditization have been reached. There's no better sign that something is over than when an article like this appears -- offering the kind of "perspective" that's possible only from a distance (as in hindsight). Any IT manager who is NOT already doing most of the things listed in this article would probably be considered out-of-touch and at risk of losing his or her job.

Yet, real growth is happening. As the article states, managers can spend the savings from commoditization on technology that really makes a difference. Evidently that's exactly what many are doing.