The transformation of the automobile industry, and of virtually every other industry in today’s world, according to the imperatives of the information economy is undeniable. And equally undeniable is the critical role of computers and the Internet in allowing these changes to take place. Though dot-coms crest and fall, the rise of “click and mortar”—existing businesses that incorporate online communication into their day-today functioning—is here to stay. The Internet is “transforming business practices in its relation to suppliers and customers, in its management, in its production process, in its cooperation with other firms, in its financing, and in the valuation of stocks in financial markets” (Castells 2001, 64). One illustration of this is the stunning growth of business-tobusiness (B2B) e-commerce, which is projected to rise in the United States alone from $400 billion USD in 2000 to $3.7 trillion USD in 2003 and to grow even faster internationally (Castells 2001, citing information from the Gartner Group). Probably the best single example of a model “click and mortar” company is Dell Computer. Dell’s ascendancy from a University of Texas college student’s personal startup company in 1984 to the forty-eighth largest corporation in the United States in 2001 (with revenues higher than Microsoft, Disney, or Cisco) has sparked a cottage industry of academic and business analysis as other firms try to “Dellize.”4 The role of ICT in Dell’s success, and the lessons of this for the broad information economy, are illustrated well in an excellent analysis by Kraemer, Dedrick, and Yamashiro (2000). The following discussion draws from their case study.
Digitalization, Informationism and Hegemony of Capitalism
