THE U.S. INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY INDUSTRY A Report on
Growth and Economic Impact of IT Industry 1940-2010 Prepared by Information Technology Industry Council (ITI), Washington DC Helga F. Sayadian, Vice President, ITI Industry Statistics Programs Detailed information and data on U.S. Information Technology Industry's growth and economic impact and industry shipment/revenue forecasts to 2010 are published in U.S Information Technology Industry Statistics Report 1960 to 2010. The report is available from Information Technology Industry Council, Washington DC. For a detailed contents description log on to http://www.itic.org/statistics. The electronic version of report can be purchased for $29.95. To order report call (00)1-202-626-5748 or contact amccormick@itic.org.
The U.S. Information Technology Industry 1940-2000 Summary All segments that comprise information technology industry (computers, telecommunications, and software and services) have played a major role in transformation of U.S. economy. The computer was commercially introduced in late 1940s and has shown fastest rate of advance of any technology in twentieth century. Communication technologies made large strides in last three decades improving telephone networks with better voice quality, higher data speeds, and faster call setup times. Software, computer programming, emerged from punched cards and tape to FORTRAN, COBOL, BASIC and fourth generation languages (4GL). For first few decades United States’ lead in computer and communications technology was unsurpassed. In 1980s other countries slowly started to catch up to state of art. The United States’ share in total worldwide IT revenue was about 45% in 2000, Europe ranked second with a 32%, share, Asia third with 20%, followed by South & Central America with 2%, and rest of world with 1%. Worldwide IT revenue including sales of hardware, software, and services are estimated to have increased from $650 billion in 1990 to $1,500 billion in 2000.
In 1973, U.S. Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) started a program to develop communication protocols that would allow computers to communicate across linked packet networks. The system of networks, which emerged from this program, was called “Internet.” The protocols developed out of this effort became known as TCP/IP protocols (Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol). In mid 1980s, U.S. National Science Foundation’s commitment to build NSFNET using TCP/IP protocol contributed significantly to acceptance of this protocol by other networking product and service oriented organizations in U.S. and internationally. The NSF's actions created much of USA's networking infrastructure. Interconnectivity among many network organizations enabled enormous traffic growth and Internet usage spread rapidly to all corners of world.
The introduction of personal computers (1985) and utilization of Internet revolutionized office environment. The cost of 1,000 bytes of internal memory decreased from about $5.50 in 1965 to less than $0.10 today. Internal memory access time declined from about 17.0 milliseconds per byte in 1955 to less than 0.01 milliseconds per byte and megabits of memory per chip quadrupled every three years. The U.S. Information Technology Industry Page 2
Personal computer (PC) prices dropped at an estimated annual rate of about 5% since its introduction. The Internet and declining prices promoted a surge in home PC sales and more than 60% of all U.S. households have one or more PCs today. About 60 million PCs were sold in United States in 2004 of which an estimated 40% were for home. Utilization of computers by public schools also increased substantially since 1980s. About 98% of all public schools are using computers in classroom today, 90% of all public libraries provide computer access, and close to 70% of all households in United States have a computer toady.
