Which of the following statements is true?
Directions: Answer the question based on the following passage.
As we enter the new millennium, computer science is an enormously vibrant field. From its inception just half a century ago, computing has become the defining technology of our age. Computers are integral to modern culture and are the primary engine behind much of the world's economic growth. The field, moreover, continues to evolve at an astonishing pace. New technologies are introduced continually, and existing ones become obsolete almost as soon as they appear.
The rapid evolution of the discipline has a profound effect on computer science education, affecting both content and pedagogy. When CC1991 was published, for example, networking was not seen as a major topic area, accounting for only six hours in the common requirements. The lack of emphasis on networking is not particularly surprising. After all, networking was not yet a mass–market phenomenon and the World Wide Web was little more than an idea in the minds of its creators. Today, networking and the web have become the underpinning for much of our economy. They have become critical foundations of computer science, and it is impossible to imagine that undergraduate programs would not devote significantly more time to this topic. At the same time, the existence of the web has changed the nature of the educational process itself. Modern networking technology enhances everyone's ability to communicate and gives people throughout the world unprecedented access to information. In most academic programs today –– not only in computer science but in other fields as well –– networking technology has become an essential pedagogical tool.
The charter of the CC2001 Task Force requires us to review the Joint ACM and IEEE/CS Computing Curricula 1991 and develop a revised and enhanced version for the year 2001 that will match the latest developments of computing technologies. To do so, we felt it was important to spend part of our effort getting a sense of what aspects of computer science had changed over the last decade. We believe that these changes fall into two categories –– technical and cultural –– each of which has a significant effect on computer science education. The major changes in each of these categories are described in the individual sections that follow.
How quickly things change in the technology business! A decade ago, IBM was the only king of the computer trade, universally feared and respected. A decade ago, two little companies called Intel and Microsoft were mere blips on the screen of the industry that had signed on to make the chips and software for IBM's new line of personal computers. Though their products soon became industry standards, the two companies remained protected children of the market leader.
What has happened since is a startling reversal of fortune. IBM is being ravaged by the worst crisis in the company's 79–year history. It is undergoing its fifth restructuring in the past seven years as well as seemingly endless rounds of job cuts and firings that have eliminated 100,00 jobs since 1985. Recently IBM announced to its shell–shocked investors that it lost $ 497 billion last fiscal, the biggest loss in American corporate history.
And just when IBM is losing ground in one market after another, Intel and Microsoft have emerged as the computer industry's most fearsome pair of competitors. The numbers on Wall Street tell a stunning story. Ten years ago, the market value of the stock of Intel and Microsoft combined amounted to about a tenth of IBM's. Last week, with IBM's stock at an 11–year low, Microsoft's value surpassed its old mentor's for the first time ever and Intel is not far behind. While IBM is posting losses, Intel's profits jumped 33% and Microsoft's rose 47%.
Both Intel, the world's largest supplier of computer chips, and Microsoft, the world's largest supplier of computer software, have assumed the role long played by Big Blue as the industry's pacesetter. What is taking place is a generational shift unprecedented in the information age-one that recalls transition in the U.S. auto industry 70 years ago, when Alfred Sloan's upstart General Motors surpassed Ford Motor as America's No. 1 carmaker. The transition also reflects the decline of computer manufacturers such as IBM, Wang and Unisys, and the rise of companies like Microsoft, Intel and AT&T that create the chips and software to make the computers work. Just like Dr Frankenstein, IBM created these two monster competitors, says Richard Shatter, publisher of the Computer Letter. Now even IBM is in danger of being trampled by the creation it unleashed.
Although Intel and Microsoft still have close relationships with Big Blue, there is little love lost between IBM and its potent progeny. IBM had an ugly falling–out with former partner Microsoft over the future of personal–computer software. Microsoft developed the new famous disk operating system for the IBM–PC called DOS–and later created the operating software for the next generation of IBM personal computers, the Personal System/2. When PS/2 and its operating system, OS/2, failed to catch on, a feud erupted over how the two companies would upgrade the system. IBM developed its own version of OS/2, which has so far failed to capture the industry's imagination. Microsoft's competing version, dubbed New Technology, or NT, will debut in a few months and will incorporate Microsoft's highly successful Windows program, which lets users juggle several programs at once. Windows NT, however, will offer more new features, such as the ability to link many computers together in a network and to safeguard them against unauthorised use.
IBM and Intel have also parted company. After relying almost exclusively on the Santa Clara California Company for the silicon chips that serve as computer brains IBM has moved to reduce its dependence on Intel by turning to competing vendors. In Europe, IBM began selling a low–cost line of PCs called Ambra, which runs on chips made by Intel rival advanced Micro Devices, IBM also demonstrated a sample PC using a chip made by another Intel enemy, Cyrix. And last October IBM said it would begin selling the company's own chips, to outsiders in direct competition with Intel.
IBM clearly feels threatened. And the wounded giant still poses the biggest threat to any future dominance by lntel's and Microsoft. Last year it teamed up with both companies that were the most bitter rivals, Apple Computer and Motorola, to develop advanced software and microprocessors. In selecting Apple and Motorola, IBM bypassed its longtime partners. Just as Microsoft's standard operating system runs only on computers built around Intel's computer chips, Apple's software runs only on Motorola's.
Although IBM has pledged that the new system will eventually run on a variety of machines, it will initially run only computer programs written for Apple's Macintosh or IBM's OS/2. Its competitive juices now flowing, IBM last week announced that it and Apple Computer will deliver the operating system in 1998, a year ahead of schedule.
After the failed Macintosh Portable of 1989, a much more popular laptop, the PowerBook, was introduced in the early 1990s. The first of these was co–designed with Sony, and established the modern layout for laptop computers that has remained popular ever since, with a rear hinge supporting the screen and a keyboard placed towards the back of the lower deck with a trackball (later track pad) in front. However, the PowerBook brand suffered a blow when the PowerBook 5300 model suffered many quality problems, such as their Lithium–ion batteries exploding, their cases chipping easily, and their poor quality screens. Products from Apple past & present also include operating systems such as ProDOS, Mac OS, Mac OS X, and A/UX, networking products such as AppleTalk, and multimedia programs like QuickTime and the Final Cut series. In 1994, Apple revamped its Macintosh line with the introduction of the Power Macintosh, which was based on the PowerPC line of processors developed by IBM, Motorola and Apple. These processors utilised RISC architecture, which differed substantially from the Motorola 680X0 series that preceded it. Apple's operating system software was adjusted so that most software written for the older processors could run in emulation on the PowerPC series.