LAUSR

Mr. Andriole writes an interesting book about an interesting topic at an interesting time in the history of business computing. The subtitle of the book should be something like “When information technology (IT) finally becomes strategic”, if we understand the basic premise. Or, in the author’s own words, “from ‘tactics’ or ‘operations’ to ‘strategy’ marks the beginning of the 2nd digital revolution” (page 1 of the Preface). So, the last 40 plus years of business computing and all of those years of “data processing” were not strategic? Were we led astray, all those many years ago, while sitting in an MBA classroom of a top 20 program when they put up that famous pyramid in the Introduction to MIS course and began talking about transaction processing systems, reporting systems, decision support systems, and executive information systems? By 1980, wasn’t the IT function already making significant strides into the executive suite and having strategic impact? Well, maybe. It’s clear that technology has come a long way since the first main frames were developed. One of us actually held a summer job in the 1970s while an undergrad working for a steel company. This mid-sized steel fabrication and erection company managed two payrolls, and estimating tasks using a UNIVAC with 32KB (that’s kilobytes) main memory and lots of punch cards. Yes, estimating — doing all the estimating calculations required for every steel beam and bolt required by a bridge or a 20 story building. To Mr. Czapla, their main programmer, charged with the job of squeezing every single byte of performance out of that machine, you’re the man and remain our idol. But was his job and the information technology he provided strategic? But we digress.... In the preface, Mr. Andriole states that this book is a departure from his normal style of writing. For The 2nd Digital Revolution, he intentionally adopted a conversational, colloquial approach. And after reading the book, we agree that the book is, in fact, written in a conversational and colloquial manner. Acronyms abound. Although many are defined prior to use, some are defined later in the text. It is clear BOOK REVIEW