These inventions were predicted to have high social effects also. (Characteristics, History, and Importance of Technological Forecasting) Over the years the government decided to make its role permanent through an office of Technology Assessment as permitted by the Technology Assessment Act. The aim of this office was to provide congress with all required information for support, management and regulation of applied technologies. This shows the great interest that the government has developed in technological forecasting and methods of forecasting and that has led to greater interest among the general public in the matter.
Business Model for technology development companies
There is no technology that has continued to develop permanently, but some organizations concentrate on development of technology. For these organizations it is important to have a capacity for technology forecasting. A case of the development of solid state technology, which started in the 1950s led to its application in different areas and had great social and economic impacts. Based on this technology has been the development of IC technology and that is now a mature technology and forms the base of the present knowledge-based economy. Similarly, there was the development of biotechnology in the 70s and that has a great impact on improvement of the quality of life for humans and giving birth to a number of new industries. According to scientists and elites of industry the latest development will come from nanotechnology which has taken off only in the 90s and that technology is likely to lead the next set of changes in technology. This seems to be an essential requirement for a sustainable society and is likely to replace both solid state technology and bio-technology from the peak, and the importance is expected to last till 2050. (Meng, 2003)
The process of nanotechnology is interdisciplinary with direct links to science and technology. The situation of nanotechnology is different from bio-technology and solid state technology in that no country is ahead of other countries by 20 years as is the case in the older...
At the same time, all technology provides options for research and technical development and those give the companies an opportunity to generate profits. These companies can thus become "technology holding" companies like the financial holding companies. Already there are some companies of this type and IBM received $1.1 billion from intellectual property and customer development in the year 2002 and Canon received $1.68 billion as patent royalty. This shows that organizations can aim the collection of such royalties as their main function. These companies can concentrate on consultation, technology valuation and brokerage, strategic planning for technology, etc. As their main function. They can choose to develop technology for large organizations on contract or license self-developed technology to manufacturing organizations in exchange for stock in those organizations. (Meng, 2003)
Conclusion
The greatest difficulty is in valuation of different technologies, and one of this was in the application area for mobile data services. In 2001, the experts were positive that market penetration of UMS-based ICT will take place in 2005, but when a study was conducted in 2003, the respondents felt that this was uncertain. (Kar; Duin2004)
References
Characteristics, History, and Importance of Technological Forecasting" Retrieved at http://www.wiley.com/college/dec/meredith298298/resources/addtopics/addtopic_s_02b.html. Accessed 10 August, 2005
Kar, Elisabeth van de; Duin, Patrick van der. (2004) "Dealing with uncertainties in building scenarios for the development of mobile services" Proceedings of the 37th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. Retrieved at http://csdl2.computer.org/comp/proceedings/hicss/2004/2056/03/205630077a.pdf. Accessed 10 August, 2005
Meng, Hshien-Chung. (Oct.28-Nov.1, 2003) "Innovation Cluster as the National
Competitiveness Tool in the Innovation Driven Economy" NIS International Symposium, Seoul. Retrieved from www.stepi.re.kr/stepidb/consult/downadd.asp?no=2Accessed 10 August, 2005
