Business Machines: Revolution Or Evolution

Abstract

IT IS A MARK OF OUR TIMES that a publication devoted largely to the interests of security analysts should call special attention to activities in science. Today, the strength and prospects of an enterprise must be evaluated not only in terms of management, sales force, and manufacturing efficiency; equal consideration must be given to its engineering program. And, in a growing number of instances, the depth and breadth of the research program in pure science must be examined. The distance in time between the work of the pure scientist and of the engineer is steadily shortening. Only a few years ago a group of physicists split the atom. Now we are talking about atomic power plants. The mycologists and biologists who discovered and made known the medical properties of the antibiotics created a need for new investment in plant facilities, to say nothing of the effect at all levels of distribution. The development of nylon had ramifications all along the line in the textile industry. One hardly need mention what is happening to radio because of television. And around the business machines industry there swirls talk of a second industrial revolution to emancipate the white collar class. We think of ours as a society that has prospered with the help of great quantities of laborsaving machinery of innumerable kinds. Yet, almost every example that we call to mind is machinery to save physical labor. The automobile spares us the effort of walking. The combine in the wheat field does the work of a hundred men with the scythe. The bulldozer can outdo fifty shovels. It is in the area of repetitive mental labor that the new revolution is said to impend. In talking about the future every man becomes a seer and an expert, and who is to challenge him? If the first industrial revolution arrived unheralded, the second is approaching to the sound of a thousand trumpets blown by those with their eyes firmly fixed on the bright blue sky. It is a triumph of communication over common sense. But underlying the confusion is a growing base of solid accomplishment which reveals scientific evolution at quickened tempo.