Few of the early computer users could have guessed what the future held in store. Those keen enthusiasts in this country who bought Sinclair ZX80s, ZX81s and Spectrums, Oric Ones, BBC Micros, Commodore 64s and VIC20s and any number of other 8-bit computers, could hardly have imagined that less than two decades later, much of the world's industry would rely on desktop computers. Even early PC users, although doubtless impressed with the way that their green-screened machines could add up and act as electronic type-writers, would have been visionary indeed to predict where we are now.

But where, in fact, are we? Walk into any office today and the chances are there'll be a computer on virtually every desk. It's reached the stage where, for many of us, the idea of working without a computer is almost impossible to comprehend. Yet, just a few years ago, offices with computers were the exception rather than the rule. What did we do before e-mail? We sent letters or faxes. How did we cope before the advent of the World Wide Web? We used libraries, newspapers, magazines, leaflets, brochures and so on. The information itself hasn't changed; the means by which it is disseminated have.

On the face of it, the IT revolution is A Good Thing. It's given us the chance to access more data, to create documents faster, distribute information more efficiently and, generally, has taken care of the mundane tasks that used to plague office workers. Unfortunately, it has also created some new problems. I doubt that there's anyone reading this column who hasn't experienced a computer crash at some time or other. Or lost information due to a disk failure, or a virus, or even malicious hacking. Generally speaking, however, computers do allow us to do more.But much of the time that we save through the use of computers is immediately consumed by the computer industry itself. IT support staff, software designers, network administrators, programmers, other programmers to correct the first programmers' mistakes, marketing teams... Information Technology is a huge, self-supporting industry. And why? Supposedly, so that we can have new, more intuitive, feature-rich products that best fit our needs. In reality, what we get is new, bug-ridden software that does all sorts of things that we will probably never require. For example, I'm writing this column on a 200MHz Pentium PC with 64MB of RAM. But I could just as easily write it on an 8086 PC with 640KB of RAM and no hard drive. Or even on a palmtop computer. It's only text, after all. I couldn't create flashy graphics, or render a 3D model, or write a visually-stunning game. But then most of us will never need to do those things anyway. For those who do, an ultra-fast PC and the latest, bleeding edge software is justified. For the rest of us, a reliable, lower-spec machine with tried-and-trusted software is a better bet.

That we want the newest, fastest, shiniest computers is beyond doubt. As a nation, and perhaps as a species, we are continuously striving towards the next great thing. In the computer industry, the next great thing comes along every four months or so and is usually made out of silicon. But perhaps the bubble has already burst, and PC users are beginning to realise that what they want and what they need are two quite different things. The recent slowdown in the growth of PC sales indicates that upgrade fever is wearing off, and that both consumers and business users have realised that there is an alternative to the mania of bigger, better, faster, more, and all the problems it creates. Computers are being seen for what they are - tools to fulfil a specific task. What this will mean to the hundreds of thousands of people working in the IT industry is anybody's guess.