The Tower and the Cloud
"The emergence of the networked information economy is unleashing two
powerful forces. On one hand, easy access to high-speed networks is
empowering individuals. People can now discover and consume information
resources and services globally from their homes. Further, new social
computing approaches are inviting people to share in the creation and
edification of information on the Internet. Empowerment of the
individual -- or consumerization -- is reducing the individual's
reliance on traditional brick-and-mortar institutions in favor of new
and emerging virtual ones. Second, ubiquitous access to high-speed
networks along with network standards, open standards and content, and
techniques for virtualizing hardware, software, and services is making
it possible to leverage scale economies in unprecedented ways. What
appears to be emerging is industrial-scale computing -- a standardized
infrastructure for delivering computing power, network bandwidth, data
storage and protection, and services. Comsumerization and
industrialization beg the question "Is this the end of the middle?";
that is, what will be the role of "enterprise" IT in the future?
Indeed, the bigger question is what will become of all of our
intermediating institutions? This volume examines the impact of IT on
higher education and on the IT organization in higher education."
An EDUCAUSE e-Book, you can order a hard copy or download the PDF:
