[LambdaDriver]

I've read the original article a while back so forgive me if my memory is a bit off.

His argument centered around these fortune 500 companies whom purchased big ERP systems and had custom development done for various parts of their businesses as a strategic investment (and a trade secret). It turned out that almost all of these companies built similar modules, since all of these companies on average hired smart managers that understood where inefficiencies could be eliminated via technology.

His correct conclusion was that these bits of tech were not strategic but rather simply the cost of doing business and thusly were open to commoditization.

Now here's where folks take a leap of faith and say that /all/ IT doesn't matter.

The way I look at it, all innovation can be strategic depending upon your business and its priorities. For most companies power and ping are commodities, but for Google it is a competitive advantage. Google would never outsource their operations to big blue, but for PWC that would probably be a good move.

Even at the micro scale you can see this in github repos where large companies will open source core modules but keep their competitive code proprietary.