Graphics in business where we are and where we are going

摘要

All of us possess a naturally well-developed faculty for recognizing pattersn. Therefore, the information technology, now furnished with a new dimension in low-cost interactive graphics, is indeed ready to be of meaningful assistance in the process of decision making. How quickly its acceptance will spread among business decision makers will depend primarily upon how swiftly the inertia of habitually dealing with numbers (rather than dealing directly with implicit patterns) can be overcome. Vendors are supplying more of an end-user product today, but the situation is far from ideal; users still have to put several bits and pieces together. It is fair to assume that better quality, more efficient, and more cost-effective graphing, communications, and computational hardware will definitely be forthcoming. Also, users will find gradually more complete systems in the market. While the hardware costs will continue to decline, the software development costs are likely to keep on increasing.Hardware vendors, although in a position to amortize the software development costs over a large number of customers, are expected to keep showing reluctance at providing users with adequate applications software and the post-sales support. If the vendors are to furnish more of the end-user oriented applications software, they must be convinced of its profitability. The users can motivate vendors to concentrate on crystalization of user needs, so that they can respond with more complete products.This paper is intended to stimulate a discussion on the state of interactive graphics art and future trends, in relationship to the (business) user needs and problems. This panel member's bias is reflected above. He believes that right now the first difficult step of "getting started" needs to be taken by most users involved in the business decision-making activity, for which fairly decent products are available. The better decision support systems must be part of an evolutionary process which should be jointly embarked on by users as well as manufacturers. Neither party can do it or will try to do it alone.