Trendsetters in IT

IT has indeed come a long way, and empowered every individual and business.
So much so that there are many things in IT that we take for granted nowadays.
It seems really odd today if someone doesn't have an email ID to communicate,
though email is only about 12 years old in the country. The Internet revolution
in India started sometime back in 1995, and email became the killer app that
made it succeed. Today, we all use email as a business and personal
communication tool, and worry about securing our messages and combating viruses
and spam that come via this medium.

It seems really odd if somebody doesn't have a cell phone these days, even
though the device is a recent phenomenon, more recent than email. In fact, the
young generation is growing up with cell phones instead of landlines. Today,
cell phones have morphed into smart phones, and making voice calls is just one
out of a hundred other things you can do with it.

For entertainment, the new generation today prefers chatting, blogging,
visiting Orkut and YouTube, instead of going for some of the old favorites like
leapfrog, kabaddi, or skipping. On a positive note, however, the youth is far
more comfortable with technology, and have much bigger virtual friend circles.
Using such technologies is a way of life for them. No wonder when they get into
the corporate world, they expect all these technologies to be available.

There are lot many other instances, like the ones above, to support IT's
impact both on personal lives and businesses. This collectors' edition of
PCQuest traces and captures the roots of the most happening products,
technologies, and trends today, most of which happened over the past 20 years.
It covers how they evolved, which products did they deliver, what made them so
successful, and where are they heading?

We hope you enjoy reading through it as much as we enjoyed writing it.

Adeesh Sharma, Anil Chopra, Anindya Roy, Jasmine Desai, Prasanto Kumar Roy,
Rahul Sah, Rakesh Sharma,
Saurangshu Kanunjna, Swapnil Arora and Vishnu Anand