IT-Enabled Services - IT Enabled Services - page 3

four stages in the development of information systems, namely, Stage I - Initiation ,
Stage II - Contagion , Stage III - Control, and Stage IV - Integration . He placed
these stages on the horizontal axis and placed information-related spending on the
vertical axis. Consequently, the plotted figures showed an S-shaped curve.
In 1979, Nolan revised his hypothesis to add two more stages, as described in his
chapter, “Managing the Crisis in Data Processing,” published in 1979 . The addi-
tional ideas came in the form of two more stages, namely, Stage V - Data
Administration and Stage VI - Maturity . From the fact that Nolan himself revised
his hypothesis, it is apparent that the stage theory has been a popular focus of
reviews in many ways, while it has continued to be a popular analytical methodol-
ogy of information systems (McFarlan and Nolan 1973 ; Gibson and Nolan 1974 ;
Nolan and Croson 1995 ). In the late twentieth century, the rapid development of the
Internet has changed the structure of IT.
1.2.1.2 Diversion of Stage Theories
As a diversion from the stage theory, the work of Shimada and Takahara ( 1993 )is
reviewed in this section. The works of Shimada and Takahara ( 1993 ) and Miyakawa
( 1994 ) are two of the most popular textbooks in Management Information Systems
(MIS) in Japan. Shimada and Takahara ( 1993 ) provide additional aspects to Nolan's
six stage theory. They interpret Stages I to IV, which have been originally explained
as “the age of Data Processing (DP),” as “the age of mainframe” in order to include
historical views on the system's development. They likewise interpreted Stages IV to
VI, originally referred to as “the age of Information Technology (IT),” as “the age of
the personal computer (PC).” Furthermore, Shimada and Takahara reflected on the
development of the Internet in the 1990s, and added “the age of the Internet” and “the
age of ubiquitous net” to refer to the overlapping previous stages.
The differentiation between DP and IT reflects the development in the use of
information, which has been mainly devoted to automated production processes.
For example, operations research, such as those on quality control, inventory
control, and optimized production planning, represent the typical application of
DP. The use of information in decision making, as in MIS and Strategic Information
System (SIS), is differentiated from DP and is regarded as IT.
Like the S-shaped curve illustration by Nolan's stage theory, according to
Shimada and Takahara, the age of mainframe computing began in the 1950s,
followed by the age of the PC (which began in the 1970s), the age of the Internet
(which started in the 1990s), and the age of ubiquitous network (which started in the
late 2000s). Their theory proposes that these major technologies are not mutually
exclusive but have multilayered structures.
1.2.1.3 Stage of Bi-directional Communication with Broadband Network
In the twenty-first century, the development of the Internet displayed a remarkable
expansion not only in geographical coverage, but also in the kind and scope of