SB500: Information Systems Instructor: Dr. Boris Jukic Evolution of Information Systems (1950’s – 2000’s)

Semiconductor Industry evolution: Moore’s Law The observation made in 1965 by Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel, that the number of transistors per square inch on integrated circuits had doubled every year since the integrated circuit was invented. In subsequent years, the pace slowed down a bit, but data density has doubled approximately every 18 months, and this is the current definition of Moore's Law

Moore’s Law Continued Fitting of more computational power in a unit of space has resulted in comparable growth in price/performance ratio of computational devices Some implications: – “The average person wears more computing power on their wrist today than all computing power combined before 1956” (Saffo, 1997) – “The computer technology in today’s cars, minivans, SUVs and trucks is nearly one thousand times more powerful than that which guided the Apollo moon mission.” (

Moore’s Law Continued There are some indications that Moore’s Law is reaching its limits – Technological reasons: (we may be reaching the limit of the underlying physics) – Economic reasons; the equipment cost of producing super advanced chips is getting exceedingly high, offsetting the savings from packing more computational power in smaller space

Moore’s Law: Discussion Question Is this growth price/performance ratio of the heart of every computational device matched by comparable performance growth in basic components of IT applications? – Desktop Computing: How much more can your PC do today, compared with 5 or 10 yrs ago? – Servers: Web servers, e-commerce servers, multi-media – Networking: how much faster, cheaper, more secure are today’s networks compared to 5, 10 yrs ago? – Software Standard office productivity software Business functional area software

Evolution IT: Early Days: 1960’s Computing and telecommunications separate islands of technology. Telecommunications primarily refer to voice communications over telephone networks. Mainframe – Dumb Terminal is the prevailing architecture: – Stand-alone, centralized computing was the norm, where mainframes and minicomputers (primarily IBM and DEC) were the major players in the computing arena. – Proprietary communication standards (e.g., IBM's SNA, DEC's DNA). There is very limited networking.

Evolution IT: Early Days: 1960’s The use of computers primarily limited to automation of mundane computational tasks: – Payroll – Early word processing software exists, but used primarily for code writing, not as an office productivity tool Batch processing is the norm – “White Lab Coat” syndrome

Discussion Questions – Were early computers able to “talk” to each other? – How come we have never faced any networking problems with a technology like the telephone?

Evolution of IT: Early Days: 1970’s – 1980’s Desktop computing staring to appear in early 1980’s with appearance of first PC’s The focus of computing was on individual productivity, i.e., how can we use the computing technology to do my own jobs in more efficient and productive ways? – The rudimentary office productivity tools staring to appear on the desktop as well (word processors, spreadsheets) often proprietary and cumbersome to use, no GUI yet until Apple in late 1980’s“SneakerNet” often the only corporate network

Evolution of IT: Early Days: 1970’s – 1980’s Rudimentary Internet, limited to academic and research elite Early Database Packages: Server side only – Move from file management to database management Procedural Programming Languages are the norm: COBOL, FORTRAN Computing and Telecommunications still separate, first data networks staring to appear – Bandwidth prohibitively expensive and ridiculously slow by today’s standards – Text exchange only

Evolution of IT: Mid 1980’s – Early 1990’s Move to Client/Server Architecture begins – Mainframe Computers still very much a crucial corporate IT resource OOP languages emerge : C, later C++, Java GUI based office productivity tools – Easier to use, standardize – Client side tools Focus starting to shift to group and organizational productivity.

Evolution of IT: Mid 1980’s – Early 1990’s LAN software and hardware becomes cheaper, more standardized and easier to use (Ethernet, Token Ring) Emphasis on connectivity and open standards (TCP/IP) First viable browser appear (Mosaic) The Web goes mainstream (CERN, Tim Berners Lee)

Evolution of IT: 1990’s - Now 3 and N-Tier architectures abound High Capacity Backbone and emergence of Broadband residential access Standardization of the Internet: IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) and Web (W3C) fuels E-Commerce and E-Business Intranets, Extranets, E-Commerce Advances in database servers, application development tools, computer operating systems (increasingly merged with Network software)

Evolution of IT: 1990’s - Now New architectural paradigms starting to emerge: distributed computing, web services, peer-to-peer Total digital convergence of voice, video and data applications Mobile and Wireless Revolution – Ubiquitous computing: anywhere, anytime on any device Web Services