La vida

Let me focus a little bit on the nature of this technology. It´s as if this technology underlies everything that we do, for example, if you look at such a thing as programmability, almost all machine tools. You know machine tools are the machines that make the parts that go into most in automobiles or other types of equipment. And so, machine tools were sort of the heart of industrial production.But today those machine tools are programmable. They have microprocessors in them and they have software in them. So that almost a 100% of almost all machine tools now in the competitive world, produce fifty items or fifty products at any one production run; fifty items. And then they change. So that programmability enables customization. Programmability of manufacturing system allows forcustomization. Once a business has customization or programmability built into its production operations it changes business from a commodity manufacture to a service because when you start asking what is it that we should build next, how should we program these machines. The minute you ask your customer a question, you are in the service business. The minute that you ask your customer to specify what itis you are going to build, you are in the service business. So, programmability, while it seems like a function of software or a function of technology, ends up being a marketing aspect; because it turns every business into a service business. So underlying if you will the whole world of our market enterprises, are these technologies that change us. Let me give you again another factor. Thetechnology of programmability allows for more diversity. There are more goods and services in almost every industry today than we have seen probably in the last hundred years. There are more automobile companies today in the world than there were 25 years ago. There are more computer companies than there were five years ago. This has created more and more choice for the consumer. I don´t know how it ishere, but I imagine that you´ve seen “Choice crow”? as well. Not only for example in your television channels but also at your local grocery stores. In America, the average grocery store, the average grocery store, has thirty thousand different products on their shelves, thirty thousand different products. Now you cannot manage thirty thousand different products without an information system. So,having a data base, scanners, all kinds of technology that allow you to know what is on the shelf, what is inventory, what is being sold, what are the margins on each item. All of that is due to an information system that enables the store to manage thirty thousand different products. If you can manage thirty thousand different products and you put the system in, then you can manage a hundredthousand different products. So many stores like Wall Mart, or some of the computer stores in Sillicon Valley have two hundred or three hundred thousand different items on the shelves. So choice becomes somewhat overwhelming. You cannot inventory three hundred thousand products and you do not want to, so you allow the suppliers to inventory them and you have just in time delivery. So the technologyallows you to manage more goods and services, it also allows you to create this just in time delivery and that in turn creates different concepts for the consumer. The consumer now in the American environment I believe, has created choice as a higher value than brand. Choice as a higher value than brand. In competitive market places where you have multiple players competing for the same consumer,choice becomes a higher value than brand. We also see and particular in a depressed economic environment, price becomes a higher value than brand. So that an example of this might be in 1990 , between 1990 and 1992, Mercedes Benz increased the price of their luxury cars. And within two years, they lost two billion dollars. At the same time Luxus came in with a low priced luxury car and made...