Managing Computers in Large Organizations

Managing Microcomputers in Large Organizations
http://www.nap.edu/catalog/167.html
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FASTER, SMALLER, CHEAPER TRENDS IN MICROCOMPUTER TECHNOLOGY 27
or more. When those disk platters were full, however, the user had to buy a new
one, an investment of $2,500 or more. We now have removable media. The
cover of the Cynthia Peripherals device flops down and the user can pull out a
10-megabyte cartridge. This is perfect for things like electronic mail where files
multiply like crazy. Now we can issue a 10-megabyte disk that has archival
capabilities.
With such devices we have continued to off-load resources from the
mainframe and even from the minicomputer. The result is that we now have a
number of interesting capabilities at the local level. Such technology clearly
requires a sophisticated management environment. We are moving toward a stage
—probably near the end of the decade—in which data will be available in data
banks at remote locations, artificial intelligence will be incorporated at the
hardware level, and logic chips and wafer technology will permit the incredible
capability of a 100 million instructions per second. From the user's perspective
the key issue in this new stage is that the microcomputer becomes an extension
of oneself, a transparent tool for the worker.
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