Category: Software
How Technology Can Enhance Growth at Home and at Work
By Dave Marquard, WEMCO Tech Chair June 8, 2019 – Curiosity has often driven me to action. In 1982 I purchased one of the world’s first portable computers, the Osborne 1. It weighed almost 25 pounds and didn’t have an on-board battery. It had to be plugged into a wall outlet to power up and use. However, it was still classified as a portable computer because it could be hand-carried. The Osborne 1 shipped with a large bundle of software worth almost as much as the computer. That software included some of the most powerful and pioneering programs of the day such as D-Base2 for data sorting; SuperCal, an early spreadsheet, and WordStar, a leading word processor application that had a dominant market share that lasted until the mid-1980s. I was a young VP at a small welding equipment manufacturing company, which while a market leader in its small niche, could never seem to break out of a slow growth cycle. My new “computer aided” ability to process large amounts of data, prepare “what if” scenarios, and then sum it all up quickly in a word-processed proposal, was enormously helpful. It enabled me to make a positive contribution to the company that impressed my superiors, peers, and subordinates. The Osborne 1 enabled us to form teams that used its data enhancing speed benefits to efficiently develop new products. By the end of
