There was no evidence that IT improved corporate profit margins in 1985. Word processors were cost of training, maintenance, and upgrade vs. incremental productivity. Most office paper is valueless. Making more faster is not necessarily good.
Spreadsheets were a godsend, but a not insignificant fraction of spreadsheets are also valueless make-work. Drafting software was real value, but boxes at the time weren't quite up to it. In 2005, PowerPoint is the single greatest drain upon accomplishment in an office. When you have nothing to say and 60 minutes to say it in - PowerPoint!
It required substantial social integration of digital electronics at all levels before things could flow. E-mail, the Internet, and search engines were rumors in 1995. By 2000 they were vital. In 2005 all human knowledge is at our fingertips. We can communicate with anybody anywhere for free.
Nanotech is nothing. It is like somebody puttering around with a ten transistor IC. Nanotech applications are scaled down macro-engineering. The world is non-linear. When you start seeing nanotech that makes no sense as macroscopic objects, things are cooking. In the meanwhile, researchers must eat and pay rent while they produce nothing, looking for something.
