Sooner than you think.

Sooner than you think
The adoption interval is shrinking.

Sooner Than You Think

Category           Technology                      Introduced
                                                   commercially

Voice              Landline telephone              1876
communications
                   Cell phone                      1973
                   Voice over Internet             1995
                     Protocol (VoIP)

Document           Mimeograph                      1875
reproduction and   Photocopier                     1949
sharing            Distributed word processing     1977
                   Paperless technologies          1980s

Visual media       Television                      1927
                   Videotape                       1956
                   Videoconferencing               1980

Electronic text    E-mail                          1965
communications     World Wide Web                  1989
                   XML/XBRL                        1998/1999

Data storage       Mainframe hard disk             1956
hardware           PC hard disk                    1976
                   Storage area networks (SANS)    1990

Removable          Magnetic tape                   1951
storage media      Floppy disks                    1971
                   CD-ROMs                         1985
                   DVDs                            1995
                   H D-DVDs                        2003
                   B l u-Ray                       2003
                   Local area network (LAN)        1977

Systems            Wide area network (WAN)         1985
connectivity       World Wide Web                  1989

                   Interval
                   (years)
                   until
                   replaced
Category           previous
                   technology

Voice              Doesn't apply
communications
                   97
                   22

Document           Doesn't apply
reproduction and   74
sharing            28
                   3 to 12

Visual media       Doesn't apply
                   29
                   24

Electronic text    Doesn't apply
communications     24
                   9

Data storage       Doesn't apply
hardware           20
                   14

Removable          Doesn't apply
storage media      20
                   14
                   10
                   8
                   0
                   Doesn't apply

Systems            8
connectivity       4