Mr. Edison, call your office...

Since early 2004, overall business investment has grown in the double digits. IT spending, however, remains flat. What's that all about? Mat Johnson, director of growth strategy and economic research at ThinkEquity Partners, contends that rapid growth rates aren't coming backas far as the overall IT market is concerned.But stop whining about it. As he sees it, this is actually a sign of progress.

As Johnson explains, we are no longer driven by "faster, better, cheaper" IT, which is a sign of "true maturation." Now we will focus on leveraging technology to create value, not merely"adopting" it as a necessary expense. The economy is not merely made up of IT companies, after all. Why should retailers,banksandpharmaceutical firms wantIT spending to keep growing at double-digits? Would we think it a good thing, posits Johnson, if electricity spending were still growing that fast and we all had ChiefUtility Officers? Surely, the power company would ownthe whole world by now.

SOA, Web services, on demand and open-sourcetechnology companies are among the firms that actually have an interest in seeing technology spending decline. Really. Their contribution lies in cutting overall technology costs whilehelping to generate new forms of business value andcompetitive advantage.