The future of IT is bright as predicted by analysts and trend setters of information technology. Many in their forecasts over exaggerate the effects. Some do it to promote certain trends, products and services, some to prove the industry leadership. This is not another crystal ball gaze but a simple extension of empirical observations of our own (still less connected) environment into the future, assuming that the present milieu surrounding IT continues. Good chances are that upward trend will not only continue but improve; in quality, quantity and area coverage. However, this article is not from the point of developers but views here are from the users. Perceptions are already changing noticeably. Most of the local analysts such as, trend watchers and users whom I talked to, expressed hope for positive changes which IT is poised to bring about. Though, one would certainly like to see more, but considering the development in IT which has resulted in access of computers. Similarly, some of the software houses are doing contractual work for western developers in their individual capacity for example, online businesses, cross political and corporate boundaries in seconds, forming new alliances that were unknown to traditional structures and channels. Akin to this, computers and the Internet are penetrating in households more and more. Rich and poor have nearly equal access to cyberspace almost anywhere and anytime. It is in this situation that those who have employed IT in corporate sector say that business practices as well as consumers’ behavior have already changed optimistically. Businesses have gone increasingly international in scope. Markets have expanded and monopolies are changing into oligopolies if (yet) not in pure competition. Any one who can bring a first class product and harness technology successfully is bound to prosper in world market. “World in which we do business today differs profoundly from that of ten years ago, and this difference is mainly because of development in IT. Why else sky suits made in Karachi and sport goods made in which are seen prominently in international championships,” says an International Marketing expert of Punjab University, Professor Mike Asthmas. Sure we are not making most of existing IT infrastructure. “What I can say with certainty about the future is this: number of business concerns, large and small, are poised in making optimum use of IT and benefit. The realization is already upon us that IT (coupled with standard business practices) is the only way ahead”. Call center based resource center’s consultant International Study Solutions thinks, “IT is not just a set of programs, instruments or utilities processing information. It is a mixture of all these essentials to meet and to achieve business goals and should be able to meet the needs of any business outfit. It is the output from all the applications and experience to produce something useful; a product, a process, a system, a methodology. It is a result that matter ultimately because that is what businesses want. Every futuristic concern now believes that employment of IT results in better efficiency, lower cost, more production flexibility, and product quality and consistency. IT expenditure, observed the drop off early in this decade world wide, has been on the rise in Pakistan. Hopefully, more business adopting call centers and deploying other IT solutions in future are to develop. “The power of computers is increasing by every other day. They are getting affordable to have, simpler to learn and massively customizable for different set of wants, making them vital part of all contemporary life activities. It is now imaginable to consider an era where hotel, airline, rail and other reservations, stock exchange trade, banking, shopping, payroll accounting and many other functions, all become computerized. “It is no prophecy because these systems are already successfully working in the west. What I see is the local users developing trust in gizmo’s and networks to transfer information as well as money economically and speedily,” e-mailed Mike, a graduate from reputed local IT institute now studying on scholarship in America he got is MCSE Exams Training IT is not autonomous. It is part of social and cultural phenomena. “Information found online in its various forms, “voice conversations, still images, motion pictures, multimedia presentations and online, including those not yet conceived”, is bringing about social changes; some are already visible. Users are demanding quality information that they can turn into common knowledge and apply to real life problems on ground. A sociologist Dr McPherson predicts, “What we find on the internet is to become part of wisdom ultimately. Or it will be rejected right away.” Past events and the measure taken are suggesting safer surfing in future. Users have been complaining of information deficiency syndrome (and information overload), spam, security concerns, identity theft, caber crimes, copyright violations, and unsavory material that mar the internet experience. Only spasm has coasted millions to businesses besides irritating individual users by filling in their in boxes with mails sometime carrying viruses such as: Trojan horses, ads for herbal medicines or links to explicit imagery. But a lot is being done to clean the cyberspace and make it more live able. A hardcore Ezechiel Aphids Abbrev says, “In future, commute on the Information Highway will be much safer. Ethics will get better. On the downside, I see paid contents on the Internet increasing. More information will go behind subscriptions and or security firewalls.” This is the future, and it is heavily IT dependent. IT plays central role in business world and in the lives of individual users, what ever they happen to be doing in life or career. Academicians, media and IT professionals themselves are best placed than any other category, to span the gaps between real world and IT and the gap between IT and perceptions. New generation will be more digital than the present one.
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