Information Technology

This article provides a brief account of information technology. The purpose of information technology is discussed and a briefaccount is given of its historical evolution.

Then the many profound influences that information technology has had, is having, and will have on organizations, and the way in which this effect will strongly affect the engineering of information technology products and services will be discussed. A presentation of 10 major challenges for information technology in the 21st century concludes the article.

Fundamentally, information technology (IT) is concerned with improvements in a variety of human problem-solving endeavors through the design, development, and use of technologically based systems and processes that enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of information and associated knowledge in a variety of strategic, tactical, and operational situations.

Ideally, this is accomplished through critical attention to the information needs of humans in problem-solving tasks and in the provision of technological aids, including computer-based systems of hardware and software and associated processes, that assist in these tasks. Information technology activities complement and enhance, as well as transcend, the boundaries of traditional engineering through emphasis on the information basis for engineering as contrasted with the physical science basis for traditional engineering endeavors.

Information technology is composed of hardware and software that enable the acquisition, representation, storage, transmission, and use of information. Success in information technology is dependent upon being able to cope with the overall architecture of systems, their interfaces with humans and organizations, and their relations with external environments. It is also very critically dependent upon the ability to successfully convert information into knowledge.

The initial efforts at provision of information technology based systems concerned implementation and use of new technologies to support office functions. These have evolved from electric typewriters and electronic accounting systems to include very advanced technological hardware, such as facsimile machines and personal computers to perform such important functions as electronic file processing, accounting, and word processing. Now networking is a major facet of information technology.

It is neither possible nor desirable to provide a detailed discussion of the present IT based devices and products, or the many possible future developments in this exciting area. There are a plethora of relevant articles in this encyclopedia that discuss these in some detail.