What's the best IT invention ever?

The mouse turned 40 this week. Many regard it as one of the most significant IT inventions of all time. Computer Weekly has asked visitors to the it-fud-blog to nominate technology they believe has made the biggest impact on the development of IT.

Colin Bannister at CA has nominated the modem. "The modem is a critical invention. Dennis Hayes and Dale Heatherington invented the PC modem in 1977, establishing a technology that has allowed today's online and internet industries to emerge and grow," he explains. For Bannister, the reason the modem is so significant is because the business value and dependence on IT grew experientially once users were able to get online access to computer systems. Of course, making systems easily available did have a big drawback. "It subsequently created a significant challenge for IT organisations to manage and secure these environments - but that is another story."

Eilert Hanoa, CEO at Mamut, nominated the Windows operating system. He says, "If we didn't have the Windows OS, IT would not be as uniform, interoperable and practical as it is today. Increasingly the industry talks about breaking down 'silo based' business and IT challenges through service oriented architecture. But before SOA was even a glint in a CIO's eye it was Microsoft's emphasis on interoperability, through the Windows model, which made true workplace collaboration possible."

Where would IT be without the internet? Ashisk Gupta, AVP, Europe Sales HCL Infrastructure Services Division HCL Technologies, believes the invention of the internet represents by far the biggest change in IT since the invention of the PC and the Microsoft operating system. "The internet is the key force which is democratising knowledge in ways which none of its inventors ever imagined. It is connecting people across countries, cultures and race into a new world which exists in parallel to the nation state as we know it."

Beyond the big-picture stuff, some of the most mundane devices have changed people's perceptions of IT significantly. "I would probably plump for the display, even looking at an old green screen CRT beats a punch card," says Stuart Bruce.

While Paul Stallard has put forward the Blackberry.