The Death of Distance: Communications Revolution and Its Implications - Softcover

Cairncross, Frances

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0752812521 ISBN 13: 9780752812526

Publisher: Orion Business (an Imprint of The Orion Publishing Group Ltd ), 1998

Synopsis

An incisive analysis of the changes taking place in the telecommunications industry and the huge effects it will have on business and society. Never before in human history has technology changed as fast as it is doing now. The biggest changes of all are taking place in communications and computers, which are being combined in new and astonishing ways. 3 sets of technologies - telephone, telvision, computer - are now racing ahead more quickly than ever before. The result will be a communications revolution which is still in it's infancy, and which is the backdrop to this book by The Economist Media editor Frances Cairncross. But the sheer speed of the change has overtaken human ability to make use of it. Technologies are hunting for uses rather than the other way. Plenty of things are becoming possible - but people may not want them, or at l east may not be willing to pay for them . A gigantic guessing game is taking place, to try to see where the communications revolution will lead, and this book offers some possible answers. 1 thing is for sure - thanks to technology and competition in telecoms, distance will soon be no object, and the effect on business and society will be dramatic.

About this title

Review

From the advent of electronic communications, there's been talk about how the world has been shrinking. Frances Cairncross, senior editor for The Economist, makes her case from an economical standpoint: The growing ease and speed of communication is creating a world where the miles have little to do with our ability to work or interact together. Cairncross predicts that it won't be long before people organise globally on the basis of language and three basic time shifts--one for the Americas, one for Europe, and one for East Asia and Australia. Much work that can be done on a computer can be done from anywhere. Workers can code software in one part of the world and pass it to a company hundreds of miles away that will assemble the code for marketing. And with workers able to earn a living from anywhere, countries may find themselves competing for citizens as people relocate for reasons ranging from lower taxes to nicer weather. Cairncross discusses about 30 major changes likely to result from these trends, including greater self-policing of businesses, an unavoidable loss of personal privacy, and a diminishing need for countries to want emigration. --Jake Bond

Review

If you want to know what is going on now in the information and communications technologies, and how they will impact the industry and our society in the not so distant future, this book is essential reading. -- Rupert Murdoch, Chairman and Chief Executive, The News Corporation

The Death of Distance captures the fundamental - yet exhilarating - changes we are experiencing and provides an insight into the ever more profound impact communications will have on our lives in the future. -- Sir Ian Vallance, Chairman, British Telecommunications plc

This is a terrific book. Cairncross brings an easy to read style, a historical perspective, and cogent research and analysis to the communications, media and computer industries. -- Michael Bloomberg

Edition details

• Publisher: Orion Business (an Imprint of The Orion Publishing Group Ltd )
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0752812521
• ISBN 13: 9780752812526
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288