IT News from 50 years ago
Oct. 20th, 2005 07:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yesthattomNotice to all employees:
The central services division would like to announce that their “general information search” team has selected a new product for use within this company. The Encyclopedia Altavistica’s that were placed in each person’s office 5 years ago are out of date. Between Nov 1 and Nov 20 each office will be visited and their encyclopedia will be replaced with the new Encyclopedia Yahoolia. It has been rumored that some people are uncomfortable with the change and wish to retain their old generation information delivery system. Sadly, consistency at this company is important and anyone found retaining their old, incompatible system will be reprimanded.
Also, to the people that have been requesting Encyclopedia Googlia, please be aware that said product was not shipping when the product evaluation team was formed, therefore the product was not considered. While we’ve been told that Googlia is better, people must understand that the 4-year product evaluation cycle was very thorough and we assure you that the product selected was the best product for business reasons that might not be obvious to those outside the central services group. Employees found going to the local library to access the Googlia product on company time will be reprimanded for wasting the corporate travel budget.
In other news...
The mail-room department will be installing a new electronic mail system in our office this weekend. We look forward to the new level of efficiency this technology will bring! Construction will begin on Friday to bring a special email transmission link to each office in the building. The new system will permit all employees to communicate with each other effortlessly.
The transmission link will run side-by-side the transmission links installed last year for the “accounting data access system”. Yes, there has been concern that with all these new transmission links we will eventually run out of conduit space inside this building. Our physical plant team has assured us that there is room for at least 3 more such systems. Who could possibly think of more than 3 new systems anyone would need? Obviously we will be able to take advantage of new such technologies for ages to come.
We appreciate your cooperation with these two projects. Construction is expected to begin Friday evening and be complete early next year.
I know everyone is excited by these new technological marvels. We all look forward to the new productivity that these systems will bring.
Sincerely,
Jon B. Inefficient
Corporate Facilities Director
Note: Having been “internet connected” for so long, I think we all have stopped appreciating the technology that now surrounds us. It is amazing and revolutionary. A single network that provides multiple services was unheard of previously. Applications could not be deployed because each one would literally require an entire infrastructure for each one. Need access to the IBM mainframe? Here’s your SNA connection. The accounting database? Here’s your token-ring link. People in the security department need specific video cables to see what’s on their cameras, etc. A phone line to each office to connect to the PBX. Each system deployed to exactly the people that need it because it was so costly. The difficulty in installing any particular new application made it so expensive that new applications were rare, and only deployed after serious debate, planning and approvals.
Even when the PC age dawned it didn’t get that much better. The company would invest millions considering competing applications. Once selected, they would visit each and every PC to install it... just as we still do with, say, an MS-Office upgrade.
Web-based applications are much different. Did your CIO department evaluate Google.com, decide that it was better, and install it on each PC in your company? No, people were using Yahoo, or Altavista, or something else and word spread about Google. Soon everyone was using it. People updated their own “bookmark list” or “startup page” to go directly to it.
Another great example is Google Earth. This takes Google Maps to a whole new level, letting people view much more detail and change the angle of view. I hear of a new and unexpected way that it is being used every day. Last week I heard real-estate agents use it to verify if that “beach-front properly with an ocean view” really has an ocean view (often they find the view obstructed by another building, saving them a trip to that house.) Their IT department didn’t have to evaluate the product, choose it, decide exactly when and how people are allowed to use it. People just started using it. If this was 10 years ago they would have done some stupid or bizarre deal like, oh I don’t know... saved money by getting the license that only lets you check for ocean-views but was blocked from using the software to verify the color of the house. That’s a crazy example, but you know what I mean.
The point is the CIO department is becoming more and more obsolete. People find new applications and use them. They don’t need permission and they don’t need special technical skills. What the CIO department needs to focus on more and more is sharing “best practices” around the company (if one person thought to use Google Earth to verify “ocean-view claims” then maybe others haven’t thought of doing that), and filling in the gaps: What do we do when there is no web-base app available? The group that maintains the corporate network, Internet connection, and related facilities is more and more important.
Where are we going in the future? What applications still need to be installed on each and every machine every time there is an upgrade? MS-Office is one example. There are rumored projects that would result in a web-based replacement for MS-Office (and I assure you, it won’t come from Microsoft). You walk up to any web browser, go to the URL of your word-processor provider and start editing your documents. Your files will be stored on an internet-based disk (like Mac’s iDisk) that you can access from anywhere, or keep your documents on a USB thumb-drive that you keep in your pocket.
Once people drop the proprietary MS-Office file formats (.doc, .xls, .ppt) and move to open, XML formats that can be accessed by any word processor, and you can be editing with Joe’s word-processor.com today, and switch to Barry’s mega-super document system dot com tomorrow. Just like people switch between Yahoo Search, Google Search, and a dozen other search engines as their needs change, we’ll change between word processing products.
Just like today, when we can’t imagine our company going through the company, office-by-office, ripping out old encyclopedias to replace them with new ones, we’ll wonder what it was like when people were stuck with one word processor, or one map software system, or one of anything.
The central services division would like to announce that their “general information search” team has selected a new product for use within this company. The Encyclopedia Altavistica’s that were placed in each person’s office 5 years ago are out of date. Between Nov 1 and Nov 20 each office will be visited and their encyclopedia will be replaced with the new Encyclopedia Yahoolia. It has been rumored that some people are uncomfortable with the change and wish to retain their old generation information delivery system. Sadly, consistency at this company is important and anyone found retaining their old, incompatible system will be reprimanded.
Also, to the people that have been requesting Encyclopedia Googlia, please be aware that said product was not shipping when the product evaluation team was formed, therefore the product was not considered. While we’ve been told that Googlia is better, people must understand that the 4-year product evaluation cycle was very thorough and we assure you that the product selected was the best product for business reasons that might not be obvious to those outside the central services group. Employees found going to the local library to access the Googlia product on company time will be reprimanded for wasting the corporate travel budget.
In other news...
The mail-room department will be installing a new electronic mail system in our office this weekend. We look forward to the new level of efficiency this technology will bring! Construction will begin on Friday to bring a special email transmission link to each office in the building. The new system will permit all employees to communicate with each other effortlessly.
The transmission link will run side-by-side the transmission links installed last year for the “accounting data access system”. Yes, there has been concern that with all these new transmission links we will eventually run out of conduit space inside this building. Our physical plant team has assured us that there is room for at least 3 more such systems. Who could possibly think of more than 3 new systems anyone would need? Obviously we will be able to take advantage of new such technologies for ages to come.
We appreciate your cooperation with these two projects. Construction is expected to begin Friday evening and be complete early next year.
I know everyone is excited by these new technological marvels. We all look forward to the new productivity that these systems will bring.
Sincerely,
Jon B. Inefficient
Corporate Facilities Director
Note: Having been “internet connected” for so long, I think we all have stopped appreciating the technology that now surrounds us. It is amazing and revolutionary. A single network that provides multiple services was unheard of previously. Applications could not be deployed because each one would literally require an entire infrastructure for each one. Need access to the IBM mainframe? Here’s your SNA connection. The accounting database? Here’s your token-ring link. People in the security department need specific video cables to see what’s on their cameras, etc. A phone line to each office to connect to the PBX. Each system deployed to exactly the people that need it because it was so costly. The difficulty in installing any particular new application made it so expensive that new applications were rare, and only deployed after serious debate, planning and approvals.
Even when the PC age dawned it didn’t get that much better. The company would invest millions considering competing applications. Once selected, they would visit each and every PC to install it... just as we still do with, say, an MS-Office upgrade.
Web-based applications are much different. Did your CIO department evaluate Google.com, decide that it was better, and install it on each PC in your company? No, people were using Yahoo, or Altavista, or something else and word spread about Google. Soon everyone was using it. People updated their own “bookmark list” or “startup page” to go directly to it.
Another great example is Google Earth. This takes Google Maps to a whole new level, letting people view much more detail and change the angle of view. I hear of a new and unexpected way that it is being used every day. Last week I heard real-estate agents use it to verify if that “beach-front properly with an ocean view” really has an ocean view (often they find the view obstructed by another building, saving them a trip to that house.) Their IT department didn’t have to evaluate the product, choose it, decide exactly when and how people are allowed to use it. People just started using it. If this was 10 years ago they would have done some stupid or bizarre deal like, oh I don’t know... saved money by getting the license that only lets you check for ocean-views but was blocked from using the software to verify the color of the house. That’s a crazy example, but you know what I mean.
The point is the CIO department is becoming more and more obsolete. People find new applications and use them. They don’t need permission and they don’t need special technical skills. What the CIO department needs to focus on more and more is sharing “best practices” around the company (if one person thought to use Google Earth to verify “ocean-view claims” then maybe others haven’t thought of doing that), and filling in the gaps: What do we do when there is no web-base app available? The group that maintains the corporate network, Internet connection, and related facilities is more and more important.
Where are we going in the future? What applications still need to be installed on each and every machine every time there is an upgrade? MS-Office is one example. There are rumored projects that would result in a web-based replacement for MS-Office (and I assure you, it won’t come from Microsoft). You walk up to any web browser, go to the URL of your word-processor provider and start editing your documents. Your files will be stored on an internet-based disk (like Mac’s iDisk) that you can access from anywhere, or keep your documents on a USB thumb-drive that you keep in your pocket.
Once people drop the proprietary MS-Office file formats (.doc, .xls, .ppt) and move to open, XML formats that can be accessed by any word processor, and you can be editing with Joe’s word-processor.com today, and switch to Barry’s mega-super document system dot com tomorrow. Just like people switch between Yahoo Search, Google Search, and a dozen other search engines as their needs change, we’ll change between word processing products.
Just like today, when we can’t imagine our company going through the company, office-by-office, ripping out old encyclopedias to replace them with new ones, we’ll wonder what it was like when people were stuck with one word processor, or one map software system, or one of anything.
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no subject
Date: 2005-10-20 03:04 pm (UTC)Unfortunately this _ISN'T_ true. You download a web application and it installs some DLLs which are older than an existing DLL and all of a sudden your corporate application no longer works and a lot of time and effort are wasted in getting the machine back to a working state again.
Web based applications along with thin clients that don't suffer Windows b0rkenness is needed before centralised IT departments become more obsolete.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-21 01:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-20 03:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-20 04:35 pm (UTC)Of course, you'll need a couple people to interface between employees and Trinet for certain things (entering payroll info, telling Trinet about new employees, etc.), but the rest of HR can focus on the more interesting work.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-20 05:01 pm (UTC)