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Weekly Column  The New Robber Barons: IT Has Become an Offensive
Weapon for Business  Status: [CLOSED] By Robert X. Cringely  In
the 1980s, we called them "corporate raiders." In the 1880s, we
called them "robber barons" -- guys like Daniel Drew, Jay Gould,
and Jim Fisk, who were the Ivan Boeskys and Michael Milkens of
their era. No matter what the century, their game was the same,
using other people's money to take control of businesses and
build empires. Sometimes it was legal, often it wasn't, but on
the whole they got away with it, though at some cost to society.
We'll get ready to go through it all again as a new era of
robber barons begins, this time based primarily on the
aggressive use of Information Technology.  We can argue whether
IT has been good or bad for the world, whether it even shows a
return on investment, but there is no doubt that it has changed
the way things work. Part o