Recent job cuts at Cable & Wireless, following the share price collapse, and the near disappearance of Marconi, provide just two more reminders that the bursting of the dot.com bubble has had a ‘real economy’ cost.
Recent job cuts at Cable & Wireless, following the share price collapse, and the near disappearance of Marconi, provide just two more reminders that the bursting of the dot.com bubble has had a ‘real economy’ cost. Remember all that hype? The business cycle was broken. Dematerialisation would solve resource constraints. Citizen empowerment will transform relationships in society. In short, sustainability without tears. After such hubris surely comes nemesis? Certainly yes, for some employees, creditors and shareholders. But the news stories reported above paint a different picture, one showing real benefits from the information and communication technologies revolution. ICT does allow low cost accessibility to a wealth of resources. It can transform the lives of otherwise excluded people. There are good grounds for optimism, as Charles Leadbeater insisted at the ‘Beyond the backlash’ conference. However, none of this is automatic. First and most obvious, the work to bridge the digital divide must continue. Second, and key to that, is measuring the results: who is benefiting and how. Another conference in October, the EU Commission’s ‘Digital Europe Forum’, highlighted the need for evidencebased policy making, when government action is called for. Third, companies outside the ICT sector need to understand the contribution they can make. Too many of the initiatives above are from the ‘usual suspects’. Scratch beneath the surface and old economy ‘smokestack’ companies are hugely dependent on new technologies. Lord Browne recently described BP as Britain’s biggest IT business, so dependent is it on computer systems. Such firms have just as much to offer in bridging the digital divide through their expertise and knowledge of applications.
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