Abstract
The evolution of the multi-billion-dollar computer services industry,
from consulting and programming to data analytics and cloud computing,
with case studies of important companies. The computer services industry
has worldwide annual revenues of nearly a trillion dollars and employs
millions of workers, but is often overshadowed by the hardware and
software products industries. In this book, Jeffrey Yost shows how
computer services, from consulting and programming to data analytics
and cloud computing, have played a crucial role in shaping information
technology---in making IT work. Tracing the evolution of the computer
services industry from the 1950s to the present, Yost provides case
studies of important companies (including IBM, Hewlett Packard, Andersen/Accenture,
EDS, Infosys, and others) and profiles of such influential leaders
as John Diebold, Ross Perot, and Virginia Rometty. He offers a fundamental
reinterpretation of IBM as a supplier of computer services rather
than just a producer of hardware, exploring how IBM bundled services
with hardware for many years before becoming service-centered in
the 1990s. Yost describes the emergence of companies that offered
consulting services, data processing, programming, and systems integration.
He examines the development of industry-defining trade associations;
facilities management and the firm that invented it, Ross Perot's
EDS; time sharing, a precursor of the cloud; IBM's early computer
services; and independent contractor brokerages. Finally, he explores
developments since the 1980s: the transformations of IBM and Hewlett
Packard; the offshoring of enterprises and labor; major Indian IT
service providers and the changing geographical deployment of U.S.-based
companies; and the paradigm-changing phenomenon of cloud service.
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