Information technology

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Information technology (IT) is a branch of engineering that deals with the use of computers to store, retrieve, and transmit information.[1] The acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of computing and telecommunications are its main fields.[2] The term in its modern sense first appeared in a 1958 article published in the Harvard Business Review, in which authors Leavitt and Whisler commented that "the new technology does not yet have a single established name. We shall call it information technology (IT)."[3] Some of the modern and emerging fields of Information technology are next generation web technologies, bioinformatics, cloud computing, global information systems, large scale knowledge bases, etc. Advancements are mainly driven in the field of computer science on top of an evolving electronics infrastructure made possible by Moore's law, Engineering, Physics/Mathematics, Defense (military) expenditures, public/private R&D, and the consumer product marketplace.

Information

Main article: Information

The English word is apparently derived from the Latin stem (information-) of the nominative (informatio): this noun is in its turn derived from the verb "informare" (to inform) in the sense of "to give form to the mind", "to discipline", "to instruct", "to teach".

Technology

Main article: Technology
Information and communication technology spending in 2005

IT is the area of managing technology and spans a wide variety of areas that include computer software, information systems, computer hardware, programming languages but are not limited to things such as processes, and data constructs. In short, anything that renders data, information or perceived knowledge in any visual format whatsoever, via any multimedia distribution mechanism, is considered part of the IT domain. IT provides businesses with four sets of core services to help execute the business strategy: business process automation, providing information, connecting with customers, and productivity tools.

IT professionals perform a variety of functions that range from installing applications to designing complex computer networks and information databases. A few of the duties that IT professionals perform may include data management, networking, engineering computer hardware, server management, database and software design, as well as management and administration of entire systems.

In the recent past, the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology and the Association for Computing Machinery have collaborated to form accreditation and curriculum standards[4] for degrees in Information Technology as a distinct field of study as compared[5] to Computer Science and Information Systems today. SIGITE (Special Interest Group for IT Education)[6] is the ACM working group for defining these standards. The Worldwide IT services revenue totaled $763 billion in 2009.[7]

Technological capacity and growth

Hilbert and Lopez[8] identify the exponential pace of technological change (a kind of Moore's law): machines’ application-specific capacity to compute information per capita has roughly doubled every 14 months between 1986-2007; the per capita capacity of the world’s general-purpose computers has doubled every 18 months during the same two decades; the global telecommunication capacity per capita doubled every 34 months; the world’s storage capacity per capita required roughly 40 months to double (every 3 years); and per capita broadcast information has doubled roughly every 12.3 years.[8]

Worldwide information technology spending

Worldwide IT spending forecast[9] (billions of U.S. dollars)
Category 2011 spending 2012 spending
Computing hardware 404 420
Enterprise software 269 281
IT services 845 864
Telecom equipment 340 377
Telecom services 1,663 1,686
Total 3,523 3,628

See also

References

  1. ^ "Princeton WordNet Search 3.1". Retrieved 2012-04-07.
  2. ^ Longley, Dennis; Shain, Michael (2012), Dictionary of Information Technology (2 ed.), Macmillan Press, p. 164, ISBN 0-333-37260-3
  3. ^ Management in the 1980’s, Harold J. Leavitt and Thomas L. Whisler, Harvard Business Review, 1958-11.
  4. ^ ABET
  5. ^ Isbell, Charles; Impagliazzo, John; Stein, Lynn; Proulx, Viera; Russ, Steve; Forbes, Jeffrey; Thomas, Richard; Fraser, Linda; Xu, Yan (2009), (Re)Defining Computing Curricula by (Re)Defining Computing, Association for Computing Machinery, ACM, ISBN 978-1-60558-886-5 {{citation}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  6. ^ "Acm-Sigite". Sigite.org. Retrieved 2012-05-18.
  7. ^ "Gartner Says Worldwide IT Services Revenue Declined 5.3 Percent in 2009", Gartner http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1363713, retrieved 20 November 2010 {{citation}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Missing or empty |title= (help)
  8. ^ a b "The World’s Technological Capacity to Store, Communicate, and Compute Information", Martin Hilbert and Priscila López (2011), Science (journal), 332(6025), 60-65; free access to the article through here: martinhilbert.net/WorldInfoCapacity.html
  9. ^ "Gartner Says Worldwide IT Spending On Pace to Surpass $3.6 Trillion in 2012". Retrieved July 17, 2012.

Further reading

  • Adelman, C. (2000). A Parallel Post-secondary Universe: The Certification System in Information Technology. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Education.
  • Allen, T., and M.S. Morton, eds. 1994. Information Technology and the Corporation of the 1990s. New York: Oxford University Press.
  • Shelly, Gary, Cashman, Thomas, Vermaat, Misty, and Walker, Tim. (1999). Discovering Computers 2000: Concepts for a Connected World. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Course Technology.
  • Webster, Frank, and Robins, Kevin. (1986). Information Technology—A Luddite Analysis. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
  • The Global Information Technology Report 2008–2009 (PDF), World Economic Forum and INSEAD, 2009, ISBN 978-92-95044-19-7

External links

Wikiversity has learning resources about Information technology


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