VideoWhen CFO began publishing, back in the primordial ooze of 1985, each issue contained a sizable amount of technology coverage. The editorial slant made sense. The arrival of IBM's original personal computer just a few years earlier, and the subsequent release of Lotus 1-2-3, had turned the finance function on its head. Suddenly liberated from the drudgery of manually tabulating figures, controllers and finance chiefs found they could close the books in days, not lunar cycles. Moreover, groundbreaking new programs like Quicken and Hardisk Accounting made rolling up columns into the general ledger a snap.
Not surprisingly, many, if not most, of the products we covered two decades ago seem quaint today. For instance, a mobile telephone that barely fits in the trunk of a car hardly qualifies as mobile now; likewise, a 28-pound Compaq Portable computer isn't all that portable. Nevertheless, a number of the first-generation products we've reported on over the years — accounting software, laptop computers, and, later, E-mail and enterprise resource planning software — have become standard operating equipment in the office of the 21st century.
What will be the revolutionary technologies of the next 20 years? As any futurist will admit, there's simply no clear answer. Experts say exponentially faster processors, coupled with a vastly improved communications network, could usher in the era of pervasive computing. It could just as easily usher in an era of pervasive irritability, as information overload becomes commonplace. Wild cards such as nanotechnology and phenotropics (software) may take things in completely unexpected directions.
That said, we decided to read the tea leaves and predict which innovations will radically transform commerce over the next two decades. Of course, we also consulted with analysts, scientists, and CIOs. While all had differing opinions on what the next big things will be, a few technologies kept coming up in our conversations, and we settled on those. Not content merely to identify the technologies, we also forecast the years when they will be widely adopted. (If we're wrong, talk to us in 2025.)
3-D Printing
Good Casting
[Adopted 2008-2010] When we first encountered solid-object printing (eCFO, Summer 2001), it was still early days for the manufacturing process. At the time, 3-D printers were expensive (upward of $800,000), error prone, and still something of a novelty. Companies mostly used the machines to create prototypes of things like casting tools or next year's big toy.
A lot has changed since then. Solid-object lasers now cost as little as $25,000, and a number of businesses have begun to deploy the machines to manufacture actual end-use products. One such company, Boeing subsidiary On-Demand Manufacturing, prints out tubes that go directly into jet fighters.
The fact that 3-D printing has, in five short years, moved from toy planes to real planes speaks volumes about where the technology is headed. An offshoot of rapid prototyping and computer-aided design, solid-object printing dramatically shortens the time it takes to build prototypes of new products or, in some cases, the products themselves. The process is similar to ink-jet printing, except the ink is replaced by polymers or powders or metal filaments. Typically about the size of a high-end copy machine, a 3-D printer deposits layer after layer of the chosen material. After each pass, heat is applied to bind and strengthen the layers (a process called sintering). In time, a solid object emerges.
Admittedly, the approach is far from perfect. Solid-object printing loses its cost advantage during long production runs, so it's not likely to replace extrusion or casting for the manufacturing of high-volume, low-margin products. And the technology needs some refining. "A lot of material goes where you don't want," says manufacturing and technology guru Richard Morley.
Still, the potential of 3-D printing is mind-boggling. Already, Renault's Formula 1 racing team uses sintering machines to produce parts for wind-tunnel testing. And the U.S. Army is reportedly building mobile 3-D printing units that can fabricate replacement parts on the spot. Some experts believe that within the next 20 years, consumers will be able to go to a specialty store and get individual items built while they wait ("Your doorknob is printing, sir").
Quantum Computing
RightÂ…What's a Qubit?
[Adopted 2020-2022] For more than four decades now, advances in microprocessing have followed the script set out by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore. Moore's Law, perhaps the best known postulate in the Digital Age, posits that the number of transistors per integrated circuit doubles every 18 months. The cramming of ever-tinier components can't go on forever, though. As transistors approach the size of atoms, computer designers will have to take account of quantum-mechanical effects; the quirky behavior of subatomic particles could cause errors.
But that behavior will also be the source of unimaginable computing power. In quantum computing, atoms, not transistors, will store information. Thanks to the phenomenon of super-position, a quantum bit — or qubit — will simultaneously represent the binary numbers 0 and 1 (unlike conventional bits, which must be either 0 or 1). And storage will scale up exponentially: two qubits will store four binary numbers, three cubits eight, and so on. One hundred qubits will store 2100 numbers simultaneously. Quantum computers, in short, will be far more powerful than today's fastest supercomputers.
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