Devil's Advocate: Paranoia and the PC power paradox

There are times when I wonder what computers are for. I know what we use them for, but does that lead to results that we really want? Could it even be that the present parlous state of the industry owes something to our blinkered horizons?

The first computers had quite modest aims. They did things like counting census forms to come up with population statistics. It was a small step from a calculating machine to a computer. Next the ability to carry out calculations at high speed was applied to scientific problems. The mathematics is more sophisticated than for censuses or basic bookkeeping, but the principle is still much the same. Computers add, subtract, multiply and divide tirelessly and quickly.

And that calculating ability seemed to place severe constraints on the usefulness of computers. Everyone knows the stories of how early commentators remarked that only a handful of machines would be needed to carry out all the useful computations that anyone could think of. Now we see that as one of the most spectacularly incorrect predictions ever made.

But just what are we using the multiplying population of computers to do? My worry is that we are still obsessed with counting. It seems to go with a conception of life that is strongly managerial. So often, it is assumed that what has to be achieved is obvious, and we merely have to find the most efficient way to do it.

One manifestation of this is the tendency to suppose that everything can be done best by the commercial sector, because it has the greatest managerial capability. This begs the question of whether it is true that abilities are higher in business than in the public sector, but let that pass for the moment.

The most immediate caveat one wants to raise is that companies' most obvious goal is to make a profit. What is done with the profit and how it rewards executives and shareholders is far more complicated than the simplistic view of capitalism would suggest. All the same, we can agree that profit is the primary goal. This severely limits the choices that can be made even by senior executives of large and successful companies, for control will change hands if the results are poor.

Yet why should we suppose that the search for profit is the most appropriate deciding factor to dominate all our efforts? One of the suppositions of government reducing its own role in the economy is that decisions are made better when profit is the deciding factor. There is little evidence that this is so.

In theory, the consumer either as an individual or through the government sets the goals. But we know very well that companies devote enormous efforts to diverting the market into the channels that suit the companies best. They spend vast sums of money attempting to influence consumer preferences and in trying to direct the choices made by governments. The more government hands over its own direct capabilities to companies, the less ability it has to make independent decisions.

The results are felt in IT both within the industry and in its external relations. Within the industry, competition is hugely distorted as companies look for profit. As buyers seek out market leaders and lock into proprietary standards, so the economic theory of pure markets goes out of the window. I am still baffled as to where all the processing power of modern PCs has gone and why my 2,000 GHz PC does little more than my old 100 MHz PC did not so long ago.

Externally, IT seems more often than not to be supporting the manipulative role of organisations. It automates "customer services", which seems to be a function designed to insulate the active part of an organisation from its customers. Or am I just paranoid?

Martin Brampton is a director and founder of Black Sheep Research (www.black-sheep-research.co.uk ), an independent consultancy providing research, writing and speaking services on a wide range of business and technology subjects. Martin was previously a director at Bloor Research, and has worked with IT as a user and analyst for over 20 years. He can be contacted at silicon@black-sheep-research.co.uk