Technology Paradise Lost Why Companies Must Spend Less to Get More from Information Technology Erik Keller April 2004, Hardbound, 270 pages ISBN Our price: $24.95 You can order this book from your bookstore by using the ISBN and title listed above.

Debunking many of today’s myths about the future prospects and growth of information technology, this book uses a variety of well-accepted economic, technological, and market data to conclude that corporate information technology spending is poised to shrink. Companies will not slow their use of IT, the books explains, but all aspects of IT will become much less expensive, thus putting a halt to the phenomenal growth of the past decade.

The book argues that over the next three to five years, the same price/performance gains enjoyed by hardware manufacturers will be seen in software, external services, and labor spending. The author outlines the reasons for these changes—factors such as open-source software, strategies of the big software companies, offshoring of labor and services, new software tools to better manage IT assets, and the Internet.

The author also contends that IT buyers have become much more savvy and will be spending less to get more. Both buyers and sellers of information technology will find especially useful the book’s “survival guides”—strategies to help them prepare for this long-term change in growth.

Erik Keller