Products That Set New Standards
Forty years. Thousands of IT products. Many of them made a huge difference for technology professionals, and they're fondly remembered. But only a few truly transformed IT and how IT people, users and businesses did their work. Here are 10 IT products that changed everything.
Dynamic RAM
IBM invented it, but Intel Corp. sold the first commercial DRAM in 1970. Within two years, it was outselling the magnetic core memory that had been the standard since the 1950s. And unlike core memory, DRAM was subject to Moore's Law: Over time, it just got cheaper and more plentiful. Today DRAM compliments processors everywhere - be it in PCs, mobile phones or embedded devices.
Ethernet
Ethernet bubbled up out of Xerox PARC, became a standard in 1980 by way of 802.3 and soon overran proprietary protocols (anyone remember token ring, FDDI or ARCNET?) to become the overwhelmingly dominant networking connection for PCs and servers. Ethernet became the first major standard in connectivity and defined how nodes would communicate with each other, for three decades now.
IBM System/370
In 1964, with its System/360 mainframe, IBM promised that customers wouldn't have to rewrite their software when they bought the next version of the machine. It would be compatible, a revolutionary concept. In 1971, the S/370 kept that promise and sealed the doom of IBM's mainframe competitors. That never-have-to-rewrite compatibility also created the Y2k problem.
IBM Personal Computer
This is a must on anybody's top IT products list. It standardized the desktop computer, made corporates accept it followed by home users too. The PC has spawned several operating systems, most notably Windows and applications to thrive on it - the hegemony that Apple is trying to break. Of course, it has evolved through the years, but the IMB PC 'started it all'.
Apple Macintosh
Macs may not outrun PC sales any time too soon, but what the Mac did do in 1984 is transform users' expectation of how friendly computers should be. The result: mice, graphical interfaces, plug-and-play peripherals and a knockoff from Microsoft called Windows. Monopoly is never good and Mac has kept the PC platform evolving and even playing catch-up many a times.
SAP R/3
Remember when data processing departments built their own financial accounting software? Starting in 1992, SAP AG wiped out the need to maintain all that code, and it was Y2k-compliant, too. It evolved from the mainframe R/2 and could be run on multiple platforms including Microsoft and Unix, opening itself up to a wide user base. R/3 later got renamed to SAP ERP and then ECC.
Salesforce.com
It stands as a glowing example of software as a service and the practicality of cloud computing. If SAP offered buy instead of build, in 1999 Salesforce.com offered rent, quite literally. Founded by former Oracle Marc Benioff, when the company went public in 2004, it used the letters CRM as its stock symbol. Not very imaginative, but drives home the point, doesn't it?
Linux
Since first appearing in 1991, Linux has shown that major pieces of IT infrastructure can be developed by large groups of loosely organized programmers. Sure, it's end user acceptance isn't great, but Linux's forte lies in powering backends of small and large companies alike. The list IT management tools that have grown on this Unix-derived platform is endless.
Netscape Navigator
When Mosaic creator Marc Andreessen added cookies in 1994, Netscape turned the Web into a worldwide marketplace, and it came at a time when the world needed a competitor to the ubiquitous and the seemingly inevitable IE. The last resurrection of this browser was Navigator 9, but more importantly today, Netscape was the base for a another browser that we know today as Firefox.
BlackBerry
There are cell phones and then there's the Blackberry. Starting in 1999 with Research In Motion Ltd's BlackBerry, showed just how business users could use push email, and the era of the 24/7 knowledge worker truly arrived. Blackberry brought in computing without a traditional computer - the carry it anywhere Internet and email device. And yes, you can make calls and do SMS as well.
Forty years. Thousands of IT products. Many of them made a huge difference for technology professionals, and they're fondly remembered. But only a few truly transformed IT and how IT people, users and businesses did their work. Here are 10 IT products that changed everything.
IBM invented it, but Intel Corp. sold the first commercial DRAM in 1970. Within two years, it was outselling the magnetic core memory that had been the standard since the 1950s. And unlike core memory, DRAM was subject to Moore's Law: Over time, it just got cheaper and more plentiful. Today DRAM compliments processors everywhere - be it in PCs, mobile phones or embedded devices.
Ethernet bubbled up out of Xerox PARC, became a standard in 1980 by way of 802.3 and soon overran proprietary protocols (anyone remember token ring, FDDI or ARCNET?) to become the overwhelmingly dominant networking connection for PCs and servers. Ethernet became the first major standard in connectivity and defined how nodes would communicate with each other, for three decades now.
In 1964, with its System/360 mainframe, IBM promised that customers wouldn't have to rewrite their software when they bought the next version of the machine. It would be compatible, a revolutionary concept. In 1971, the S/370 kept that promise and sealed the doom of IBM's mainframe competitors. That never-have-to-rewrite compatibility also created the Y2k problem.
This is a must on anybody's top IT products list. It standardized the desktop computer, made corporates accept it followed by home users too. The PC has spawned several operating systems, most notably Windows and applications to thrive on it - the hegemony that Apple is trying to break. Of course, it has evolved through the years, but the IMB PC 'started it all'.
Macs may not outrun PC sales any time too soon, but what the Mac did do in 1984 is transform users' expectation of how friendly computers should be. The result: mice, graphical interfaces, plug-and-play peripherals and a knockoff from Microsoft called Windows. Monopoly is never good and Mac has kept the PC platform evolving and even playing catch-up many a times.
Remember when data processing departments built their own financial accounting software? Starting in 1992, SAP AG wiped out the need to maintain all that code, and it was Y2k-compliant, too. It evolved from the mainframe R/2 and could be run on multiple platforms including Microsoft and Unix, opening itself up to a wide user base. R/3 later got renamed to SAP ERP and then ECC.
It stands as a glowing example of software as a service and the practicality of cloud computing. If SAP offered buy instead of build, in 1999 Salesforce.com offered rent, quite literally. Founded by former Oracle Marc Benioff, when the company went public in 2004, it used the letters CRM as its stock symbol. Not very imaginative, but drives home the point, doesn't it?
Since first appearing in 1991, Linux has shown that major pieces of IT infrastructure can be developed by large groups of loosely organized programmers. Sure, it's end user acceptance isn't great, but Linux's forte lies in powering backends of small and large companies alike. The list IT management tools that have grown on this Unix-derived platform is endless.
When Mosaic creator Marc Andreessen added cookies in 1994, Netscape turned the Web into a worldwide marketplace, and it came at a time when the world needed a competitor to the ubiquitous and the seemingly inevitable IE. The last resurrection of this browser was Navigator 9, but more importantly today, Netscape was the base for a another browser that we know today as Firefox.
There are cell phones and then there's the Blackberry. Starting in 1999 with Research In Motion Ltd's BlackBerry, showed just how business users could use push email, and the era of the 24/7 knowledge worker truly arrived. Blackberry brought in computing without a traditional computer - the carry it anywhere Internet and email device. And yes, you can make calls and do SMS as well.
No comments:
Post a Comment