When Big Blue Got a Glimpse of the Future - Bits - Technology - New York Times Blog

History in the making -- see the full post for more details

In 1978, I.B.M. was beginning to design its PC, which was a radical break for a company that had until then resisted open architectures and industry standards. Mr. Lowe invited Mr. Nelson to the company’s offices in Atlanta for a 90-minute presentation.

The resulting slide show, in which Mr. Nelson sketched out a world in which computer users would be able to retrieve information wherever they were, came as a shock to the blue-suited I.B.M. executives, Mr. Lowe said. It gave a hint of the world that the PC would bring, and even though the I.B.M.-ers were getting ready to transform a hobbyist business into one of the world’s major industries, they had no clue of the broader social implications. That would have to wait two decades for the rise of Google and the search engines.

When Big Blue Got a Glimpse of the Future - Bits - Technology - New York Times Blog