CHANGING TECHNOLOGY AND EXPECTATIONS
CHANGING TECHNOLOGY AND EXPECTATIONS
The job that most companies are doing with information today would have been fine several years ago. Getting rich information was prohibitively expensive, and the tools for analyzing and disseminating it weren’t available in the 1980s and even in the early 1990s. but here on the edge of the twenty – first century, the tools and connectivity of the digital age now give us a way to easily obtain, share and act on information in new and remarkable ways.
For the first time, all kinds of information – - numbers, text, sound, video – can be put into digital form that any computer can store, process, and forward. For the first time, standard hardware combined with a standard software platform has created economies of scale that make powerful computing solutions available inexpensively to companies of all sizes. And the “personal” in personal computer means that individual knowledge workers have a powerful tool for analyzing and using the information delivered by these solutions. The microprocessor revolution not only is giving PCs an exponential rise in power, but is on the verge of creating a whole new generation of personal digital companions – handhelds, Auto PCs, Smart cards, and others on the way – that will make the use of digital information pervasive. A key to this pervasiveness is the improvement in Internet technologies that are giving us worldwide connectivity.
In the digital age, “connectivity” takes a broader meaning than simply putting two or more people in touch. The Internet creates a new universal space for information sharing, collaboration, and commerce. It provides a new medium that take the immediacy and spontaneity of technologies such as the TV and the phone and combines them with the depth and breadth inherent in paper communications. In addition, the ability to find information and match people with common interest is completely new.
These emerging hardware, software, and communications standards will reshape business and consumer behaviour. Within a decade most people will regularly use PCs at work and at home, they will use e – mail routinely, they’ll be connected to the Internet, they’ll carry digital devices containing their personal and business information. New consumer devices will emerge that handle almost every kind of data – text, numbers, voice, photos, video – in digital form. I use the phrase “Web workstyle” and “Web lifestyle” to emphasize the impact of employees and consumers taking advantage of these digital connections. Today, we’re usually linked to information only when we are at our desks, connected to the Internet by a physical wire. In the future, portable digital devices will keep us constantly in touch with other systems and other people. And everyday devices such as water and electrical meters, security systems, and automobiles will be connected as well, reporting on their usage and status. Each of these applications of digital information is approaching an inflection point – the moment at which change in consumer use becomes sudden and massive. Together they will radically transform our lifestyles and the world of business.
Already, the Web workstyle is changing business processes at Microsoft and other companies. Replacing paper processes with collaborative digital processes has cut weeks out of our budgeting and other operational processes. Groups of people are using electronic tools to act together almost as fast as a single person could act, but with the insights of the entire team. Highly motivated teams are getting the benefits of everyone’s thinking. With faster access to information about our sales, our partner activities, and, most important, our customers, we are able to react faster to problems and opportunities. Other pioneering companies going digital are achieving similar breakthroughs.
We have infused our organization with a new level of electronic – based intelligence. I’m not talking about anything metaphysical or about some weird cyborg episode out of Star Trek. But it is something new and important. To function in the digital age, we have developed a new digital infrastructure. It’s like the human nervous system. The biological nervous system triggers your reflexes so that you can react quickly to danger or need. It gives you the information you need as you ponder issues and make choices. You’re alert to the most important things, and your nervous system blocks out the information that isn’t important to you. Companies need to have the same kind of nervous system – the ability to run smoothly and efficiently, to respond quickly to emergencies and opportunities, to quickly get valuable information to the people in the company who need it, the ability to quickly make decisions and interact with customers.
Culled From The Book
? BILL GATES, 1999 – BUSINESS AT THE SPEED OF THOUGHT