The History and Evolution of Collaborative Tools and Environments

Invention of the Telephone

Mar 10, 1876

The “Electrical Speech Machine,” was invented by Alexander Grahm Bell.

Invention of ENIAC

Feb 15, 1946

The ENIAC is the first all-purpose computer. It weighed 30 tons and had more than 6,000 switches and 18,000 tubes and cabinets.

Invention of the first video camera to record both image and sound.

Nov 30, 1956

The invention of Ray Dolby, Charles Ginsberg, and Charles Anderson were sold for $75,000 apiece and exclusively to large TV networks.

Invention of first office photocopy machine

Sep 16, 1959

Xerox released the first office photocopying machine, the Xerox 914.

FIrst network e-mail sent

Jul 15, 1971

Ray Tomlinson senda first network e-mail on ARPANET.

FIrst commercial mobile phone released

Sep 21, 1983

The DynaTAC 8000x retailed for $3,995 – the equivalent of $8,772.59 current [2014] USD.

First portable computer released

Sep 20, 1989

Apple released the Mac Portable, a battery-powered computer for $6,500.

Microsoft Outlook 97 was released

Jan 16, 1997

This service offered a central hub that included email, scheduling, contact management, task management and a journal component.

AOL connected its email systems to the Internet

May 15, 1997

This internet service provider allowed users to talk in real time through chat rooms and instant messaging (IM).

Webistes become prominent sources of information

Dec 31, 2000

Over 22,000,000 websites existed across the World Wide Web and an estimated 360 million people were online.

Social Media Revolution

Dec 31, 2016

Social media revolution was in full effect with Facebook tallying 1 billion users; Twitter – 500 million users.