The Trend of OA


Takashi WATANABE
OA was introduced to help the individual do the office job quickly in the 1980s. With advent of 1990s, it achieved rapid development with the information technique bringing about superior performance of each information equipment and dramatic plungs in its price. As a result, the times have come when every office worker is provided one personal computer. Information equipment such as the personal computer is now connected with the network at the same time and the information is shared both at the company level and the individual level. Moreover, a lot of enterprises introduce the groupware such as the electronic mail and the work flow control trying to do business quickly and efficiently as a whole. In the future, OA will shift its emphasis on supporting the advanced office work of creative consideration/judgement with adoption of newer media and technique such as multimedia and Internet. It is expected that the office will increasingly aspire for true inovation in the 21th century.