| Since the second edition of this book appeared in 1996, we have seen Information Technology (IT) become an increasingly integral component of everyone’s working life and personal environment. IT is now ubiquitous and enables a degree of connectivity that was difficult to envisage even 10 years ago. The technology has evolved rapidly, producing significant advances in its capabilities and hence the business options and opportunities now available. Without doubt, the Internet has evolved into a significant business opportunity—when the second edition was published, Amazon.com, the doyen of the Internet, had only just come into being. Indeed, since the second edition the socalled ‘dot.com bubble’ has inflated and burst leaving much in its wake. Apart from the spectacular failures, many companies are now downgrading their forays into the world of cyberspace; many online ventures are even dropping their dot.com names. Despite this, there is no doubt that we have still only scratched the surface of the possibilities.
Interactive digital television (iDTV) offers great promise in bringing the Internet and new broadcast services directly into the homes of consumers. Wireless technologies are poised to provide further opportunities to organizations as both employees and customers become less dependent on location in carrying out their jobs and conducting business. In the six years since the last edition, the language of information systems and technology (IS/IT) has also changed. E-commerce and ebusiness have come into common business parlance and even entered the home via TV advertising! While e is largely a relabelling of what was previously known as IS/IT, there are a number of new dimensions in the use of IT implied by e. These are considered in this edition. Perhaps, most importantly, the introduction of these new terms attracted increasing senior management interest in IS/IT and its importance to their organiza- tions. Unfortunately, the over-hyped promises have left many senior executives more uncertain than ever before about what can actually be achieved through IT use. One IT director summed up the dramatic changes in sentiment by saying, ‘in 2000 you could get any amount of money by putting an e in front; but in 2001 anything with an e had no chance of funding!’ |