In 1985 Bill Synnott and Dr. Gruber co-chaired the “Information Power” conference. Catherine Harris, responsible for information technology at BusinessWeek, produced the cover story INFORMATION POWER from our conference and quoted Dr. Gruber's warning “The distance between now and five years ago is that then technology had limited function. You weren’t betting your company on it…Now you are."
From historical perspective during information technology revolution data processing was universally a low-level administrative function, with a few exceptions, until the 1970s. Information technology cost-effectiveness became powerful in the late 1960s and 1970s but overall the data processing function continued to be low-level during a transition in which a major business function after another was transformed. This was a time when semi-conductors wiped out the primitive technology of vacuum tubes, computer memory and speed increased dramatically, and the internet was created.
© 2019 William H. Gruber