Teching Order
Somebody just told me there wasn't any Internet in 1977...and no productivity software suites...and no voice mail...e-mail...cell phones...bar codes--how did entrepreneurs compete with big business before technology leveled the playing field?
To understand where technology is today and find out where
it's going in the future, we have to first listen to Barbra
Streisand and look at "the way we were." Flash back to
1977: Fax machines and land-line phones were the cutting edge of
business hardware. The Apple II computer was introduced the month
before the launch of this magazine. With 64K of memory and a 1 MHz
processor, it heralded the beginning of the PC era. Kay Kienast,
Internet veteran and vice president of marketing with advanced
networking start-up Solid Technologies, remembers it well:
"People thought 'This will never last.'"
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The road from the Apple II to today's Internet-cruising,
flat-screen 2 GHz business PC is paved with innovations and
milestones. In 1981, with Apple and Tandy ruling the market, IBM
released the 5150 PC, which sported a 4.77 MHz Intel processor.
Mike Ravagnani, director of technology consulting firm Revolution
Software in Worthington, Ohio, says, "The first IBM PC really
made businesses sit up and listen. Before that, it was all
kids' toys and research." Then came Microsoft, and the
revolution was really moving.
Add the Web to this recipe in 1990. Shake well for 12 years, and
look at the ways technology has changed what it means and what it
takes to be an entrepreneur. The idea of launching a competitive
virtual global business from a spare bedroom would have sounded
like an H.G. Wells story 25 years ago. But it's possible
today.
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Wireless technology started a hundred years ago when Guglielmo
Marconi transmitted a signal across the Atlantic. We've made a
few advances since then. Experts point to wireless as one of the
biggest tech stories for the next 25 years, and the onward march of
technology is unsentimental. We'll watch pagers fall like
floppy disks by the wayside, as mobile phones rule and wireless
LANs become some of the hottest hardware around.
Add wired technology to the endangered list, and expect all
devices to be completely wireless down the line. The Handspring
Treo mobile phone/PDA combination is a prototype for wireless
devices in the future: small, capable and multifunctional. But
security issues will continue to haunt wireless and other
technologies. On the positive side, Ravagnani notes that biometrics
and security research are shaping up as high-growth areas for
entrepreneurs.
| ·Technology:First it leveled the playing
field. Where's it headed now?
·Money: Capital was scarce 25 years ago.
Here's its state today.
·Management: Trends are multiplying
fast. What will stand the test of time?
·Marketing: Technology and
personalization will rule this arena.
·Franchising: Get ready . . . the golden
age of franchising is upon us.
| | 25 Years of
Entrepreneur: A timeline of the forces that
have shaped entrepreneurship through the years |
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