On this day in economic and business history …

Several innovations reached critical milestones in their development on April 27. All three of those we’ll examine today have affected the companies on the Dow Jones Industrial Average , but the effect isn’t always straightforward, nor is it always positive. In fact, the first development on our list never added much at all to its creator’s bottom line — but its influence on the computing industry (which has placed five companies on the Dow) is undeniable. Let’s take a closer look at these three developments, to better understand how they’ve helped shape the business world as it exists today.

Point and click, day one
Xerox introduced the world’s first commercially available computer mouse on April 27, 1981. The mouse had been invented way back in the 1960s by Douglas Englebart and his team of researchers at Stanford, but it would take many years for technologists to translate his innovations into commercially successful products. In fact, until the mouse was released as part of the Xerox Star workstation package, there had been no computers with graphical interfaces available for public purchase. Without graphical interfaces, there simply hadn’t been a reason for anyone to use a mouse.

The Star’s graphical interface and its mouse were both descendants of the legendary Xerox Alto, an experimental computer developed by Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center that is largely known now for its influence on young entrepreneurs Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. However, like the Alto, the Star was too far ahead of its time and wound up quickly eclipsed by a lower-cost but less-functional computer released later in 1981: the PC.

It was not until 1984, when Apple launched the Macintosh, that a computer purpose-built for mouse controls caught on with the public. By the time Dow component Microsoft‘s Windows 1.0 hit the market in 1985, the mouse era had taken hold. The combination of a mouse with a graphical user interface could have propelled Xerox ahead of PC creator (and longtime Dow component) IBM, but Xerox’s inability to capitalize on advanced technology is the stuff of corporate legend. IBM is no less to blame for its inability to maintain control of the standard it created. By allowing Microsoft to control the PC‘s operating software, IBM missed a golden chance to leverage its scale and technological expertise into a fully proprietary mouse-based computing experience.

How much longer will the mouse era last? The mouse may soon find itself relegated to technology’s dustbin as touchscreen devices gain prominence with the public. That won’t happen for some time, but it’s interesting to think about what our next control scheme will be. Beyond touch, will we move things on the screen with our eyes? Will our brainwaves be the next control scheme? The answer may be just around the corner.

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance