IBM 1998 Annual Report Download - page 40

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a n d b e c o m e s i n v i s i b l e
THE EVOLUTION of information technology is as
i r r e s i s t i b l e as a force of nature. The basic elements
of computing – processors, storage, memory – all
grow inexorably faster, smaller and cheaper. That
renders a few things pretty clear.
One is that e-business is just phase one of this
networked transformation. What’s next is an
explosion – from a world of a million e-businesses,
and a billion connected users to a trillion connected
t h i n gs – cars, clothes, household appliances, mach i n e
tools, each emitting a little information and all of them
interwoven in the global information infrastructure.
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