Services Transformation Through New Information Technology: Information Horizons Revisited

Over twenty-five years ago we posed the question, “Why write another book about information technology?” After all, information technology (IT) was such a rapidly changing field that any review was likely to be out of date by the time it was published. Efforts to explore the future of new IT were liable to be hubristic, banal, or both. We justified the endeavour as reflecting the need to apply a more systematic contribution to the debate over the future social implications of IT than had thus far been achieved. Though discussions of IT futures were already becoming an overcrowded and diverse field, most of these were expressions of individual viewpoints, with little examination of other perspectives.Needless to say, over the past quarter of a century, the flow of assessments and prognosis of the impact of IT has continued unabated. Assessments can be more seriously based on empirical analyses of the experience that has been gained, but the qualitative changes that have given rise to discussion of, for example, Web 2.0 and Business 3.0 suggest that past data may not be simply extrapolated to give us future prospects. Seemingly outrageous predictions rub shoulders with complacent proclamations that concerns about threats to employment, privacy and the like are overwrought. It is an opportune time to revisit the subject and review our original analysis in the light of events, to see how far our expectations were borne out and how far they were misguided. We were also curious to see whether the framework for analysis that we provided has stood the test of time — something that pundits in the field rarely get the opportunity, to do (or is it that they lack the incentive to do this). While it would be gratifying to chalk up occasions where our forecasts were accurate, and galling to list failures, examining the reasons why forecasts were more or less confirmed or overturned should take us beyond such a balance sheet. We can hope to see what sorts of dynamics were successfully understood, and what things were overlooked, and why this was this case. This can hopefully improve our understanding and future acuity.