Web 2.0 and the Digital Revolution
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This is a new series that will focus on IT, Web 2.0, and the ever-changing IT environment. This first article will take a look back at how IT has changed companies. If this bores you, just bear with me, the next article is on the new pirates of Silicon Valley. Arrrr!
Many people refer to this generation as the digital generation. For example, we no longer send letters via snail mail and ordering stuff is no longer done by phone. All these activities have been moved to the computer and the Internet. But if there wasn't anything wrong in the first place, then why fix it? Was there anything wrong with mailing letters by hand and purchasing things over the phone? Technically it may have worked, but it is very slow and can be easily done in a faster, more efficient way.
Computer? We don't need no stinking computers!
Sometimes technology can't be predicted, and sometimes people dont need a product. Early on, these people didn't "get" computers very well, or at least the idea of home computing. I guess it was hard to see the need for a computer at home. Here are a few of the great quotes:
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." - Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943
"I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year." - The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957
"So we went to Atari and said, 'Hey, we've got this amazing thing, even built with some of your parts, and what do you think about funding us? Or we' ll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary, we'll come work for you.' And they said, 'No.' So then we went to Hewlett-Packard, and they said, 'Hey, we don't need you. You haven't got through college yet." - Apple Computer Inc. founder Steve Jobs on attempts to get Atari and HP interested in his and Steve Wozniak's personal computer.
Next: Staying on top >>
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