The technology breakthrough that enabled the modern computer occurred over 60 years ago, when researchers at Bell Laboratories in New Jersey created the first working transistor on December 16, 1947. William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain received a well-deserved Nobel Prize in Physics in 1956 for their groundbreaking work in transistors.

What started with one transistor has grown at an astonishing rate. The Semiconductor Industry Association estimated that in 2008, a total of 6 quintillion transistors were manufactured (that’s a six followed by 18 zeroes), an amount equal to 900 million transistors for every person on Earth. To see this growth in transistors in action, consider the steady evolution of Intel’s semiconductors. In 1978, its wildly popular 8086 processor contained 29,000 transistors. The first Pentium processor was introduced by Intel in 1993, with 3.1 million transistors. In 2007, each of Intel’s Zeon Quad-Core processors contained 820 million transistors. In February 2010, the company launched its newest Itanium chip with 2 billion transistors!

The worldwide market for information and communications technologies and services (ICT, which is the broadest view of InfoTech activities of all types) was estimated at more than $3 trillion in 2006, growing to $3.7 trillion in 2008. That number will grow further to more than $4 trillion by 2011. (These numbers are according to data developed by Global Insight, Inc. as published by WITSA, the World Information Technology and Services Alliance, www.witsa.org.)

Are the boom years in IT spending over? The Great Recession certainly took a toll on the IT industry. However, by late 2009, sales trends were starting to look more robust, as organizations are beginning to replace aging equipment and purchase advanced technologies. Analysts at technology research firm IDC estimated that worldwide IT spending declined by 4.5% in 2009, to about $1.43 trillion, down from 2008’s $1.5 trillion. However, they were able to forecast that the number will grow by 3% in 2010 to $1.48 trillion as spending picks up. In particular, they expect hardware spending to accelerate by 5%. (Note: their figures do not include the communications segment, and are consequently much lower than those of WITSA.)

During 2009, a global economic slowdown dampened hardware and software sector growth. Nonetheless, sales in 2009 were relatively strong for such items as small netbook computers (a sector in which prices have dropped dramatically), along with advanced, Internet-enabled cell phones with color screens.

Emerging markets are of extreme importance to the IT sector. Developing countries now account for more than one-half of all sales of PCs, and for about 70% of unit sales of cell phones. The number of cell phone subscribers worldwide is soaring, standing at 4.6 billion by the beginning of 2010, and expected to grow to as many as 5.8 billion in 2013. Low prices for equipment and services are fueling this boom in the Third World. China has grown to be one of the top markets worldwide for IT expenditures. A recent study by the OECD, titled "Information Technology Outlook," shows that developed nations’ share of global IT spending was only 76% in 2008, compared to 85% in 2003.

Worldwide sales of semiconductors decreased 2.8% to $248.6 billion in 2008 from $255.6 billion the previous year. They remained weak in 2009, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association, at $226.3 billion, but sales are expected to rebound to $242.1 billion in 2010.

PC shipments were relatively strong toward the end of 2009, particularly for laptops and netbooks. Gartner estimated growth in the global PC market at 2.8% for 2009, with 298.9 million units shipped worldwide. They forecast booming growth of 12.6% for 2010, to 336.6 million units.

The InfoTech industry is galloping into globalization at a very rapid rate. Research, development and manufacturing of components and completed systems have grown quickly in the labs and manufacturing plants of India, China, Taiwan, Korea, the Philippines and Indonesia, among other lands. Computer services continue to move offshore quickly, particularly to the tech centers of India. Asian PC brands are gaining strength, including Acer and Lenovo.

While the 1970s and 1980s will be remembered as the "Information Age," and the 1990s will undoubtedly be singled out in history as the beginning of the "Internet Age," the first decades of the 21st Century may become the "Broadband Age" or, even better said, the "Convergence Age." A few years back, the advent of the networked computer was truly revolutionary in terms of information processing, data sharing and data storage. In the ‘90s, the Internet was even more revolutionary in terms of communications and furthering the progress of data sharing, from the personal level to the global enterprise level.

Today, broadband sources such as Fiber-to-the-premises, Wi-Fi and cable modems provide high-speed access to information and media, creating an "always-on" environment for many users. The result is a widespread convergence of entertainment, telephony and computerized information: data, voice and video, delivered to a rapidly evolving array of Internet appliances, PDAs, wireless devices (including cellular telephones) and desktop computers. This will fuel the next era of growth. Broadband access has been installed in enough U.S. households and businesses (more than 100 million) to create a true mass market, fueling demand for new Internet-delivered services, information and entertainment. Growth in broadband subscriptions worldwide is very strong. Analysts at In-Stat estimate that there were 578 million broadband subscribers worldwide by the end of 2009 (both fixed and wireless), and that the number will surpass one billion by 2013.

The advent of the Convergence Age is leading to a steady evolution in the way we access and utilize software applications, including the recent soaring growth of cloud computing.

Major innovations due to the Convergence Age: 1) On the consumer side, widespread access to fast Internet lines has created a boom in user-generated content (such as Flikr, YouTube and Wikipedia); games; social networking (such as Facebook and MySpace); as well as TV, radio and movies delivered via the Internet (such as Netflix’s movie download service). 2) On the business side, the Convergence Age is leading to rapid adoption of Software as a Service. That is, the delivery of sophisticated software applications by remote servers that are accessed via the Internet, as opposed to software that is installed locally by its users (such as Salesforce and Microsoft’s Windows Live). 3) On the technology side, the Convergence Age is leading to booming growth in computing power that is distributed over large numbers of small servers, now referred to as "cloud computing." 4) Mobile computing is soaring worldwide, taking advantage of the three trends listed above. Source: Plunkett Research, Ltd.

The promise of the Convergence Age—the delivery of an entire universe of information and entertainment to PCs and mobile devices, on-demand with the click of a mouse—is now at hand. Consumers are swarming to new and enhanced products and services, such as the iPod and the iPhone. Over the next five to ten years, significant groundbreaking products will be introduced in areas such as high-density storage, artificial intelligence, optical switches and networking technologies, and advances will be made in quantum computing.

The InfoTech revolution continues in the office as well as in the home. The U.S. workforce totals more than 150 million people. Microsoft has estimated that there are 40 million “knowledge workers” in the U.S. A large majority of the workforce uses a computer of some type on the job daily, in every conceivable application—from receptionists answering computerized telephone systems to cashiers ringing up sales at Wal-Mart on registers that are tied into vast computerized databases. This is the InfoTech revolution at work, moving voice, video and data through the air and over phone lines, driving productivity ahead at rates that we do not yet know how to calculate. Our ability to utilize technology effectively is finally catching up to our ability to create the technologies themselves. We’re finding more and more uses for computers with increased processing speed, increased memory capacity, interfaces that are friendly and easy-to-use and software created to speed up virtually every task known to man. Cheaper, faster chips, bigger storage capability and more powerful software will continue to enter the market at blinding speed.

InfoTech continues to create new efficiency-creating possibilities on a continual basis. Now, RFID (radio frequency ID tagging, a method of digitally identifying and tracking each individual item of merchandise) promises to revolutionize logistics and drive InfoTech industry revenues even higher.

health care industry is undergoing a technology revolution of its own. Patient records are slowly going digital in standardized formats, and RFID is starting to make hospital inventories more manageable.

businesses, the stark realities of global competition are fueling investments in InfoTech. Demands from customers for better service, lower prices, higher quality and more depth of inventory are mercilessly pushing companies to achieve efficient re-stocking, higher productivity and faster, more thorough information management. These demands will continue to intensify, partly because of globalization.

solutions are rising from InfoTech channels: vast computer networks that speed information around the globe; e-mail, instant messaging, collaboration software and improved systems for real-time communication between branches, customers and headquarters; software with the power to call up answers to complex questions by delving deep into databases; satellites that are beginning to clutter the skies; and clear fiber-optic cables that carry tens of thousands of streams of data across minuscule beams of light. Businesses are paving the paths to their futures with dollars invested in InfoTech because: 1) substantial productivity gains are possible; 2) the relative cost of the technology itself has plummeted while its power has multiplied; and 3) competitive pressures leave them no choice.