Technology Expansion: 2010 and Beyond

Author: Technology First

January 2010

Over the last ten years, technology has transformed our work life and play in ways that we take for granted today.  Prior to 2000, everyone had a home phone with a spot in the annually published phonebook, music was being purchased on CDs, and a CD with a free month of AOL came in the mail or with everything you bought.  A new job was found in the Sunday newspaper, there were pay phones in public places, and most homes and many businesses struggled with the speed of dial-up Internet access.

In the late 1990’s a survey funded by the Dayton Development Coalition uncovered a critical mass of IT workers in the Dayton region.  With the Coalition’s assistance, Technology First (formerly the Greater Dayton IT Alliance) was funded by the Ohio Department of Development to meet the needs of the previously unidentified, emerging skill set.  “LexisNexis, NCR, Reynolds & Reynolds, and Wright Patterson Air Force Base – along with hundreds of other companies – were expanding their IT workforce to utilize the power of emerging technology tools,” recalls Ann Gallaher, chief operating officer of Technology First.  “Computers were moving to every desktop with Internet connectivity and email as an accepted form of business communication.  The deadline of Y2K loomed and businesses were embracing the Web for marketing and sales.”

Leigh Sandy, vice president for DONet, remembers, “The buzz was all Y2K and broadband.  It seems 2000 was the build year and fiber was being installed by all the big boys. Wireless was also just hitting the scene.  Time Warner Cable purchased Media One and AOL was king of the hill. AT&T was starting to offer DSL (1.5mbps was the top speed) and any business with a name ending in .com was going public.”

Paul Moorman, IT strategist for NewPage Corporation has followed the evolution of the Web, “One of the interesting views of 2000 until now occurs when we look at how web sites have changed during this decade.  The Wayback Machine shows a variety of snapshots of the City of Dayton’s web site.  The earliest, from 2001, shows a pretty basic, mostly text-based brochureware site, a far cry from the current, graphics-laden site that includes Twitter, YouTube and Facebook links.”  http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.cityofdayton.org.

Steve Hangen, CIO and vice president for WinWholesale agrees that technology has evolved at an increasingly brisk rate and wonders about the future impact of communication tools on business and professionals alike.  “The rapid adoption of texting and social media such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter into everyday life and their transition into the business environment has been amazing.

In similar fashion, the widespread proliferation of mobile devices has made email, instant messaging, texting and web-browsing available to individuals around the clock -- which has heightened expectations and the ability to contact all types of business workers -- at any time.”

The evolution and expansion of technology has been frenetic but this is no time to become complacent.  “The IT industry has become much more mature in the last decade.  However, the need for IT and innovation still remain strong,” adds Dave Gasper, President of Initial Point.  

Timeline

2000
World Internet Users are counted at 360 million.
IBM introduced the first flash drive at a stunning 8 MB.  
Dot.com bust as the venture capital expansion into on-line business collapses.
The Y2K scare is inconsequential.
TiVo DVR began storing television programs onto hard disk storage based on an original design which was used by both Philips and Sony.
Instant messaging entered the mainstream market when an open source application and open standards-based protocol was launched enabling gateways to other IM protocols.

2001
Napster, iTunes, and I-Pod permanently changed the music industry
Vonage’s entry into VoIP reduces telephone long distance fees.
Wikipedia, a free, open-content encyclopedia is founded.
Microsoft released Windows XP, the first version that encompassed both its business and home product lines.

2002
eBay acquires PayPal for $1.5 billion.
Netflix, a mail order and on-line entertainment distribution company, initiated an initial public offering (IPO).
Sirius Satellite Radio was officially launched.

2003
The first commercial camera phones are available in North America.
Amazon posts first yearly profit after being founded in 1995
Blaster virus forced businesses to examine their security standards and increases interest in network access control (NAC) technology.

2004
Google becomes a public stock offering after being founded in 1998.
Executives from IBM and Hewlett-Packard declare that the Linux (open source) industry has finally grown up and is ready to take on Windows and Unix for all corporate needs.

2005
Google purchases YouTube for $1.65 billion despite the lack of a business model.
Sexting was reported in the Sunday Telegraph Magazine.

2007
Total on-line sales were estimated at $136.4 billion which is an increase of 19.0 percent from 2006.
Twitter is founded providing real time news and information.
Amazon releases an e-book, the Kindle, allowing readers to purchase and download books.

2008
Social networking tools create virtual communities.  Obama wins presidential campaign leveraging a connected constituency.
Bill Gates retires from running day to day operations at Microsoft to spend time focusing on his over $34 billion foundation.

2009
World Internet Users are now a 1.7 billion community.  
Google users’ market share is challenged by “decision” search engines.
Flash drives sell for under $30 storing 16GB of graphics, photos and information.
Facebook grew from 150 million users to more than 350 million users in one year with nearly 70% of users living outside the US.
Smart phones allow consumers to compute on the move.  Mobile applications and constant connectivity enable banking, shopping, games, and communications.
Blogs allow the general public’s opinion to weigh in on everything from national news to inferior products.
Amazon e-book holiday sales overtake print books for first time.
The once dominant ISP AOL’s 2000 merger with cable king Time Warner unravels.

What will be the next game changer?  Will…
Smart grid technology monitor home and business energy use creating better efficiencies?
Electronic medical records save healthcare expenses and lives?
Cloud computing become a less expensive and more efficient option for storing and manipulating data?
Web 3.0 allow better access to information and speed up the decision making process?
Business intelligence and data analytics help define competitive advantage and a business’s speed to market?
Visualization tools improve human performance and decision making?

If you base your answer on the progress and sophistication of today’s systems -- against the potential and opportunity of tomorrow – experts say there is still a need to push the technology envelope.

“Over the last ten years, we have experienced tremendous advances in software technology. Applications are now standardized on .net or Java written to a backend database while leveraging the power, flexibility and efficiency of the Internet.  Companies can capture requirements, design, develop, deploy and support custom web based applications for customers in months rather than years” according to Gary Codeluppi, vice president of sales and marketing, for the Ross Group.

Dave Gasper agrees that capturing the data isn’t the challenge anymore, “The IT industry has transformed business decision making from lack of information to a place in which too much information can be gathered.  Synthesizing data will become much more critical in the next decade than the last decade.”

Steve Hangen says it all comes down to the people.  “By and large IT professionals are still passionate and driven to deliver and enhance quality business solutions......regardless of the technologies that are ever-changing around them.”

Ann Gallaher concludes, “Growing and retaining a seasoned workforce is a primary focus for Technology First and its education partners.  Though technology has become more pervasive, more plug and play, and consumers and businesses have begun adopting at a faster rate - the development and integration of business systems will continue to require advanced IT professionals with a depth and breadth of experience.”