Week 9: Clear

What are the 5 Waves of IT?

It is not uncommon in the IT world to experience disruption. Basically, at every level in the IT market new technologies and ideas are regularly introduced. Some of these ideas are able to cause real disruptive change, whereas others do not.

The development of IT and computers is evolutionary and when examining the history of IT up to the present, there appear to be five clear waves. These waves do not refer to specific technologies, but they represent major changes in the way computer technology was deployed.

Following, we will have a closer look at each of the five waves.

Photo 1: Five Waves of IT

 

Wave 1: Mainframe

In the 1960s computing was limited to large, room-sized mainframe computers. The computers were batch processing machines and they ran like a serial production line, where all the work was brought to it. IBM was able to position itself as the dominant IT vendor.

Photo 2: IBM 704 as an example for a mainframe computer

Wave 2: Mini-Computer

Ten years later in the 1970s, Moore’s Law kicked in after Gordon Moore has published the first article about his observation in 1965. He forecasted a doubling in processor capacity each year, and corrected it to two years in 1975. At this time mini-computers, which were anything but mini seen from today’s perspective, were the new development.

Photo 3: PDP 7 as an example for a minicomputer

Wave 3: Personal Computers

In the 1980s personal computers got favorable and common. The disruptive element of this wave was that individual person got access to computing resources. Companies like Microsoft, Intel and Compaq (now HP) became IT giants. At the end of the decade nearly every white-collar worker in the US had a fast and cheap computer on his desk at work. The increase in productivity and efficiency was enormous.

Wave 4: Mobile Computer

In the 1990s the fourth wave took place with internet computing being on its rise. Servers and networks got cheaper and cheaper, and nice graphical interfaces came into existence. From then onwards it was possible to issue commands very easily via mouse-clicks. Moreover, as the name of the “wave” says, computer become mobile and users were able to carry their computers with them.

Wave 5: Ubiquitous Computer

Nowadays, computers have become so fast and cheap that there are regarded as ubiquitous as they are used in almost every part of our lives. Wave 5’s disruptive element is the fact that intelligence is provided to objects by embedding sensors and processor in them. It gets easier to track things, report things etc. The value however, does not lie in the individual information but the value comes from integrating them.

With the year 2011 one might claim, that probably a new wave has started when referring to the ten year rhythm. However, what is going to come is not yet clear, but we should be curious about the future…

Original photo 1 by szeke on flickr.com:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pedrosz/4296580747/sizes/l/in/photostream/

Altered by Nina Maria Scherl

Photo 2 by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory on Wikimedia Commons: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ibm704.gif

Photo 3 by toresbe on Wikimedia Commons:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pdp7-oslo-2005.jpeg