Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Cisco supports both corporate mainframe and client-server communications
and also personal computer communications with devices such as the Linksys
routers. The communication and router business is highly complex and in rapid
technical evolution. These products are partly electronic and contain embedded
software, which allows them to be upgraded in the field.
The wealth and success of Cisco are built on the facts that computers and soft-
ware are used by all companies and government agencies and by a majority of
private citizens as well. In order to communicate among all of these diverse and
heterogeneous systems, products such as those offered by Cisco and its competit-
ors are needed in every computer installation.
Digital Consulting Institute (DCI)
Digital Consulting Institute is an interesting example of an ephemeral market that
was strong and growing at the start of the decade but that found that advances in
technology steadily eroded the size of the market.
DCI was a seminar and education company founded by George Schussel and
his wife, Sandi, in 1982 in Andover, Massachusetts. During this decade, there was
a rapid expansion of programming personnel combined with a growing interest
in structured development. Professional seminars and courses were a high-growth
subindustry. Academic education was still somewhat lacking for corporate needs,
so DCI and several other seminar groups offered a large number of courses for
both technical and management personnel.
After 10 years or so of growth, DCI jumped into larger multispeaker events and
also started to do trade shows with vendor showcases. These larger events attrac-
ted audiences in the hundreds and required larger conference halls at major hotels.
At its peak, DCI had hundreds of top speakers and thousands of clients, many of
whom worked for Fortune 500 companies.
Some of the speakers are familiar names and are cited in several other chapters
in this topic: Steve Jobs from Apple; Larry Ellison from Oracle; Ted Codd from
IBM; Fran Tarkenton, the former football quarterback; Ed Yourdon, the famous
software author; and John Cullinane are samples of the top names in the DCI
stable of speakers.
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