IT HARDWARE INDUSTRY

PRIYANJALI TYAGI PGDM(FULL TIME) SECTION-A

INTRODUCTION
Information technology is that branch of engineering that deals with using computers for storing ,retrieving and transferring of information. The main fields of information technology are acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numeric information by a microelectronics based combination of computing and telecommunication are its main fields. Some of the modern and emerging fields in information technology are cloud computing, global information systems, large scale knowledge bases etc. Information technology is a huge industry in itself. The number of related areas that it covers is range from semiconductor design and production through hardware manufacture mainly for personal computers, mainframes, and servers to software, backup and retrieval, data storage, networking and internet. Each of the major sub-areas in the IT industry is capable of dividing itself into its own component parts. For eg we can break down storage into disk drives optical drives and into string attached and network storage.

HISTORY OF THE IT HARWDWARE INDUSTRY

1617- Scottish mathematician john napier invents logarithms and constructs set of rods or bones for performing mechanical calculations. 1642- French mathematician and philosopher Blaise pascal constructs and demonstrates a mechanical adding machine. 1666- German mathematician Gottfried Leibnitz writes on the value of binary numbers in de arte combinatore. 1694- Leibniz constructs first mechanical device device that could successfully perform all the four major arithmetic operations that were addition, subtaration, multiplication and division. 1804- Joseph jacquard a French engineer developed punched card system for programming looms. In which weaving cloth was developed to match a set of commands. Holes in the card matched to binary open or close. This system used for the input of data in machines persisted til the 1960s. 1823- English engineer Charles babbage developed a difference engine. The first mechanical computer. 1834- Charles babbage deigned the analytical engine. Augusta lovelace wrote the first computer program. 1925- Vanevaar bush designs and builds the first multipurpose mechanical analogue computer. 1936- Alan turing an English mathematician uses binary notion and Boolean logic together to produce tests for mathematical probability. He also proposed a universal turing machine which was a theoretical machine consisting of all the mathematical and logical elements of a modern analogue computer. 1948- first computer using stored program built at Manchester university. 1962- SPACEWAR first graphical computer game. 1968- Douglas englebart first demonstrates WINDOWS and MOUSE in san fransisco. 1969- Myron kruger developed the first prototypes of virtual reality.

1975- Bill gates and Paul allen found MICROSOFT. 1978- Phillips and sony introduce the laserdisc(analogue video). 1981- IBM introduces the first PC. 1983- Microsoft launches its first version of windows. Myron Krueger artificial reality. 1984- apple MAC launched. DNS introduced. Number of internet hosts reaches upto 1,000. 1985- commodore amiga launched(powerful graphics facility)- first Amstrad released in UK. 1987- Ted nelsond literary machines describes project xanadu- his scheme for electronic commerce and micro-payments. Hypercard added to the apple-mac. Number of internet hosts reaches 10,000. 1989- Tim bernes lee developes the hyper text markup language and world wide web at CERN in geneva. Howard rheingolds tools for thoughts. Number of internet hosts reaches upto 100,000. Hewlett Packard starts research and development work in india. 1990- Archie(search tool) was released by the Mcgill university. Microsoft launches windows 3.0. 1991- CERN launches thw world wide web. Univeristy of Minnesota launces gopher a search tool. 1992- university of Nevada launches veronica a search tool. Number of internet hosts reaches upto 1000,000. 1993- Marc Andreessen, NCSA, alongwith the university of Illinois developed mosaic which was the first graphical interface to the world wide web. Also, a 341,634 percent growth rate was recorded in web traffic. 1994- first ecommerce arrived on the www. Linux 1.0 open source operating system was also released. Oracle develops development centre in Bangalore. 1995- the first search engine was developed. SUN launched java programming. 1996- A browser war begins between netscape and Microsoft.

1997- GE capital international services starts back-office service operations which provided services like finance, accounting, call centres, insurance,analytics, customer and IT servies in india. 1998- extensible markup language(XML) was first introduced. Estimated size of web to be 320 million pages. Intel starts operatinons in india by setting up a sales office in Bangalore. 2000- dotcom crash had begun. Size of web estimated to be one billion pages. 2003- google claimed a searchable database of 3.6 billion web pages. 2005- google claimed there searchable database to be of 8.2 billion web pages. 2006- google claimed a searchable database of 25 billion web pages. 2008- google claimed there searchable database to be of 1 trillion web pages.

HEWLETT PACKARD
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Hewlett-packard also knows as HP was established in the year 1947. This firm provides technologies, solutions, products, services and technologies to large enterprises small or medium sized business houses and to individual customers. There customers also includes government, education and health centres. The operations of the company can be organised into seven different segments which are- imaging and printing group, services, storage and networking, personal systems group, enterprise servers, HP software, HP financial services and corporate investments. HP offers personal computing and access devices and multi vendor customer services which includes infrastructure technology and business process outsourcing, support and mainteinance. HP was found in 1939. Its corporate headquarters is located in palo Alto, calif. The current ceo and president of HP is Meg Whitman. HP is the largest IT company with a total revenue of $127.2 biilion for fiscal 2011. It operates in more than 170 countries around the world.(source- hp.com) HP has three business groups driving industry leadership in core technological areas. These gropus are: The personal system group: business and personal pcs, workstations and mobile computing devices. The imaging and printing group: inkjet, laserjet, digital photography and entertainment, commercial printing and printing supplies. The technology solutions group: business products that include storage and servers, managed services and softwares.

SAMSUNG
Samsung electronics is a part of multi-billion dollar company in the world. Samsung exceeded the $100 bn dollar sales mark for the first time in 2007. This is makes it one of the top three companies in electronics as only Hewlettpackard and Siemens have reported the revenue higher than samsung. The name Samsung means three stars literally in Korean which represents the companies dominance in two other sectors: Samsung heavy industry and Samsung engineering and Samsung engineering and construction. Samsung has made a remarkable mark from being one of the copy cat manufacturers earlier to one of the most valuable companies today Much of its success can be owed to the value innovation program. With 6 labs staffing around 450 people it first understands what is the consumers need long before delivering for those needs. The company is headed by Geon hui lee who is the current president of the company and Oh hyeon gwon who is the current CEO of the company. It makes many kinds of consumer devices, including DVD players, digital TVs, and digital still cameras; computers, color monitors, LCD panels, and printers; semiconductors such as DRAMs, static RAMs, flash memory, and display drivers; and communications devices ranging from wireless handsets and smartphones to networking gear. The company, which is the flagship member of Samsung Group, also makes microwave ovens, refrigerators, air conditioners, and washing machines. (source: hoovers.com) Its headquarter is located in London and the annual sales at the end of the year 2011 was reported to be $104,155.5 mil.

FOXCONN
Hon hai precision limited which is the anchor company of foxconn was founded by Terry gou in 1974 with $7,500.. Today foxconn technology is considered to be the most dependable partner for joint design, development, assembly, manufacturing and after sales service to global computer, communication and consumer electronics. It focuses on the fields of nanotechnology, heat transfer, material sciences, wireless connectivity and green manufacturing process. Foxconn has also set up various research centres and testing laboratories for mechanism, material and electronics for conducting the research and technology development throughout the world. Besides it also cooperates with the eastablishment of research institution for nanotech, new material and optical fibre. Foxconn is also devoted to develop thermal treatment, nanotech, nano measure, wireless network, environmental protection, optical plating technique, CAD/CAE, precision/nano processing, SMT, and network CMOS chips which allows foxconn to accumulate around 25,000 patents worldwide by 2010. This lead to foxconn being recoqnized leader for innovation and technical knowhow in rankings of MIT or IPIQs patent scorecard. There are three segments in which the companys operations are organised based on the location of customers: Asia, Europe and America. Wai leung chin is the executive chairman of the board whereas Tien chong chen is the CEO of the company.

NOKIA
This finnish icon is the worlds largest manufacturer of mobile devices and has around 40% of the global device market. Nokia is very, very successful and in 2006 generated revenue that for the first time was in excess of finlands state budget. Nokia has always used innovation as a key driver for growth: first by pioneering GSM and then by reinventing the concept of product personalisation. These days nokias challenege is to maintain its position in a wo rld increasingly converged and domainted by the likes of google and Microsoft. However while these companies have strong brands and interesting plans for the future they dont have control over the handsets. Nokia is building great services with tailored, user-friendly hardware. With a billion customers and relationships with hundreds of operaters around the world, nokia may well manage to hold its place.(source:innovationleaders.org) Nokia is also the owner of symbian operating system and it also partly owns meego operating system. It also operates a number of subsidiaries worldwide. Its operations can be divided into three operating systems that are devices and services, location and commerce and nokia Siemens network. The company is currently led by Stephen elop who is the present president, chief executive officer and chairman of the company.

DELL
Dell is a global information technology company that is offering that is offering customers a wide range of services and solutions that are delivered by dell through its wide range of distribution channels. It is a holding company conducting its business throughout the world through its subsidiaries. The companies operation can be divided into four segments: large enterprise, public, small and medium businesses and consumers. On February 3,2012 it held a worldwide portfolio of 3,499 patents and also has 16,660 pending patent applications. In addition it also holds licenses to numerous third party patents. Dell designs, develops, manufactures, markets, sells and supports a range of products, solutions and services. The Companys services include a range of configurable information technology (IT) and business services, including infrastructure technology, consulting and applications, and product-related support services. The Company offers a variety of services to its customers as part of an overall solution. It offers services that are tied to the sale of its servers, storage, and client offerings. These services include support and extended warranty services, managed deployment, enterprise installation, and configuration services. Its outsourcing services include data center and systems management, network management, life cycle application development and management services, and business process outsourcing services. It also offers short-term services that address an array of client needs, including IT infrastructure, applications, business process, and business consulting.(source: reuters.com) The company is headed by Michael dell who is the chairman as well as the CEO of the company.

TATA CONSULATANCY SERVICES

The company was founded in 1968 and is one of the biggest corporate houses in india. It is also indias biggest IT firm with a total staff of about 111,000 employees. The company began as a division of tata group called tata computer services that provided computer services to other companies but it soon became tata consultancy services after realising the huge potential in the booming IT sector. The company recorded a net profit of about Rs.12.90 billion for the first quarter that ended in june 2008. TCSs services include application development and mainteinance, business intelligence and performance management, business process outsourcing, engineering and industrial services, enterprise solutions(CRM,ERP,SCM) IT consulting, IT infrastructure services, testing and quality assurance to the companies banking, energy and utility, financial services, life sciences and health care, insurance media and entertainment, manufacturing, telecommunication retail, consumer goods and transportation. TCS operates across more than 41 countries with about 155 offices thoughout the globe.

WIPRO
Wipro started off as a hydrogenated cooking fat company, Wipro is today is a $5 billion revenue generating IT, BPO and R&D services organisation with presence in over 50 countries. Premji started Wipro with the 'idea of building an organisation which was deeply committed to values, in the firm belief that success in business would be its inevitable, eventual outcome'. The company has over 72,000 employees.(source:citehr.com) Wipro technologies is a global service provider delivering technology driven business solutions. Wipro is the worlds first CMMI level 5 certified software services company and the first company outside USA to receive IEEE software process. It is a subsidiary of Wipro limited with its headquarter located in Bangalore. It has around 53 development centres throughout the globe.