Alter, 1980

Steven Alter (1980) wrote, "It is quite possible that the "information utility" concept that was conceived in the 1960s will start to become a reality in the 1980s. Builders of DSSs will be able to purchase or lease standard modules that can be transferred immediately over phone lines into the memories of their personal computers. Both internal corporate data and proprietary commercial data will be available in the same manner. Some of the standard off-the-shelf modules will be report generators; others will be easily tailored query languages, statistical packages, graphical display packages, etc. As noted earlier, the key stumbling block to greater use and accepance of DSSs is that it simply takes too long and requires too much effort to bring the concept of a system or type of analysis to the point where it can be tried out realistically. The combined power of network technology plus personal computers may have a profound impact in alleviating much of this problem in situations where the data exist and the models are reasonably well understood and not too complex. The degree to which it will help when the data are not readily available or the models are not well understood is much more questionable." (p. 191)

Alter, Steven. Decision Support Systems: Current Practice and Continuing Challenges. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., 1980.

appeared in DSS News, June 17, 2001, Vol. 2, No. 13