differentiation done right enhances competitiveness
if you do what everyone else does, you get what everyone else has.
if you have an IT department that's good at finding truly great solutions before your competitors do, and willing to risk its credibility by not playing it safe (let's not say "CYA"), you can gain a very real (and sometimes overwhelming) competitive advantage by using technology more effectively than others do.
if you follow the crowd ("no one gets fired for buying IBM/Microsoft/Oracle/insert-dominant-player-here"), you get short-to-medium-term job security and thoroughly ordinary results.
as a network manager, i decided to not use Cisco equipment in the last datacenter created under my management. we used Dell switches (quite good, Intel generic hardware, very good support), ImageStream router/firewall/VPN/DSU (T1/T3) embedded Linux boxes (very affordable, no licensing fees, amazing support), and Airespace wireless (again embedded Linux, great service and tech, but later bought out by Cisco, much to my chagrin).
we saved 90% on deployment and administration costs, and got better service.
if i could convince the management to switch to thin clients, we would have gotten even better value from IT.
i risked my job to recommend what i thought was the best solution. the result was clear competitive advantage: improvements in speed, accuracy, efficiency, transparency, and timeliness, and excellent uptime.
if you follow the crowd, you get outsourced, as outsource providers can recommmend conventional solutions as easily as you can.
if you don't deliver compelling value through differentiation (or unless you're on very good terms with some top-level executive who can guarantee your job security), be prepared to transition out of this profession.