Looking Back Before UC—Part 3, Survey Says…

When the first part of this article (http://www.ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/looking-back-way-back-before-unified-communications.aspx) was posted I promised (or was that threatened?) to share the results of this informal survey of transformational IT/telecom developments since 1959. Well, that time has certainly come. First of all, it should be noted that there were not many responses to draw from. Perhaps folks were not quick to comment on a 50 year view of anything since it would tag them as “old” and out-of-touch in our iPhone-y, Twitter-me world. Plus the economy is struggling and many people are simply focused on trying to make a buck in today’s environment and may be turned off by wasting energy on something presumably off-topic like looking back to earlier times. However, as we know and Shakespeare said, “what is past is prologue” and history always offers important lessons for the future.

That said, the “almost unanimous”, top 3 IT/telecom developments of the past half-century from the survey were:

• The PC
• The Internet
• The Cell Phone

Probably not too surprising a result since the huge impact of these on our daily lives is immeasurable. How did we ever get along without them? Their revolutionary nature was not clear when introduced, but occurred over time aided significantly by advances in related technologies and marketplace dynamics. The PC, once called the “microcomputer”, was a hobbyist’s delight until legitimized by IBM and then the spreadsheet application accelerated it into a mandatory business tool. The Internet was out there for years as a research network, but explosive growth did not occur until the World Wide Web came about and practical Web browsers were made available (e.g., Netscape in 1994). The concept of cellular mobile radiotelephony is actually over 60 years old, starting life as an engineering memo at Bell Labs in 1947.  It took 30 more years until enough technical, regulatory and other elements were in place for a large-scale, multiple-cell AT&T trial. The rest, as they say, is history with rapid acceleration in recent years to the point that as of mid-2008 there were over 260 million cell phone subscribers in the U.S., triple what it was in early 2000. Today there are roughly 4 billion cell phones in use throughout the world.

At a recent symposium on the impact of IT on society      (http://www.amacad.org/audio/mountain/mountain.aspx)

John Hennessey, President of Stanford University and a computer industry pioneer, noted those same three as the major transformers that have brought about today’s digital age. By the way, the transcripts from that symposium are quite interesting and highly recommended.

What are some of the other key developments in the last 50 years? For a few of the choices it is difficult to decipher which came first in the “chicken and egg” sense. Although that even applies to the top 3 since today’s cell phone really contains a very powerful PC chip inside it. To a number of respondents, the integrated circuit or silicon chip clearly belongs as one of the top if not the most important development. Certainly, it is the most important enabler or building block. Strictly speaking, early prototypes were introduced in 1958 just prior to the 50 year window as noted in Part 1, but the impact of the chip has been huge and continues to this day.

Other significant developments suggested included:

• Fiber optics
• Laser
• Mouse
• Relational Databases
• Ethernet and the LAN
• Messaging
• VoIP and IP Communications
• Satellite Communications 

Unified Communications was proposed as one of the top 5 in one reply. To this observer, it’s a little early to consider UC as a proven transformational phenomenon. There’s certainly promise of good things to come, but history teaches us that doesn’t guarantee anything. Remember “National ISDN”? I sure do, and I have the t-shirts and scars to prove it. In many respects, UC is the current generation of communications/network “convergence” that has been with us for at least half of the last 50 years. As sort of a successor to CTI and ISDN, it’s likely that UC will do better. The growth of an all-IP world should expand and solidify UC. Also, whereas CTI and ISDN implied major disruptions to physical infrastructure, UC is software-driven and more accommodating for retention of existing IT and telecom assets. Plus UC should benefit from today’s standards landscape (i.e., SIP) and overall industry direction where traditional IT titans like Microsoft and IBM are pursuing UC. Time will tell.

There have been many exciting and innovative products in the 1959 to 2009 timeframe. I’d like to close this discussion by highlighting a revolutionary landmark offering that embodied so much of what was to follow. It is the Xerox Alto introduced at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) in 1973! This was the first computer to have:

• Mouse
• Graphical User Interface (GUI)
• Ethernet Networking
• Bit-mapped Display
• Software innovations like “Smalltalk” and WYSIWYG text editing

This first “desktop” computer was truly remarkable for 1973, the Alto was way ahead of its time. The GUI, for example, wasn’t really adopted until 20 years later. I was with Xerox at the time in a different business unit, and it was clear that senior management was clueless about PARC and the breakthroughs there. What a shame. Who knows what might have been?

Xerox Alto (1973)