IT contributes much, much more than most Fortune 500 companies are willing to admit. These computational systems have added much to the average organizations bottom line. Think of "Just-in-time" inventories, communications, transport and analysis. International conglomerates have realized trillions in profit just through increased efficiency"”one of those evils was actually the advent of the spread-sheet.
When C-level executives could play with the numbers on slow afternoons, they saw the cost savings of slighting hourly workers ($.50 to $10.00) and how this would increase their bonuses.
To umbrachist: Yes, I work with both Microsoft and Linux...and sorrowfully, less UNIX in my day-job.