Digital transformation

Digital Transformation (DT or DX) is the use of new, fast changing digital technology to solve problems often utilising cloud computing, reducing reliance on user owned hardware but increasing reliance on subscription based cloud services. Some of these digital solutions enhance capabilities of traditional software products (e.g. Microsoft Office compared to Office 365) whilst others are entirely cloud based (e.g. Google Docs). Digital Transformation (DT or DX) is the use of new, fast changing digital technology to solve problems often utilising cloud computing, reducing reliance on user owned hardware but increasing reliance on subscription based cloud services. Some of these digital solutions enhance capabilities of traditional software products (e.g. Microsoft Office compared to Office 365) whilst others are entirely cloud based (e.g. Google Docs). As the companies providing the services are guaranteed of regular (usually monthly) recurring revenue from subscriptions, they are able to finance ongoing development with reduced risk (historically most software companies derived the majority of their revenue from users upgrading, and had to invest upfront in developing sufficient new features and benefits to encourage users to upgrade), and delivering more frequent updates often using forms of agile software development internally. The change to the subscription model also reduces software piracy. Some of these digital solutions enable - in addition to efficiency via automation - new types of innovation and creativity, rather than simply enhance and support traditional methods. One aspect of digital transformation is the concept of 'going paperless' or reaching a 'digital business maturity' affecting both individual businesses and whole segments of society, such as government, mass communications, art, medicine, and science. Digital transformation is already underway, but is not proceeding at the same pace everywhere. According to the McKinsey Global Institute's 2016 Industry Digitization Index, Europe is currently operating at 12% of its digital potential, while the USA is operating at 18%. Within Europe, Germany operates at 10% of its digital potential, while the UK is almost on par with the US at 17%. In 1703 Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz explained and envisioned the concept that would be known as 'digitalization' in his publication Explication de l'Arithmétique Binaire. Initially developed as a base-2 numerical system, using only two values, 0 and 1, the system was further developed and complemented by scholars such as George Boole (1854), Claude Shannon (1938) and George Stibitz during the 1940s. The first practical transistor was the point-contact transistor, invented by the engineers William Shockley, Walter Houser Brattain and John Bardeen in 1947. Shockley's research team later invented the bipolar junction transistor in 1948. The MOSFET (metal-oxide-silicon field-effect transistor), also known as the MOS transistor, was invented by Mohamed Atalla and Dawon Kahng in 1959. With its high scalability, and much lower power consumption and higher density than bipolar junction transistors, the MOSFET made it possible to build high-density integrated circuit (ICs), allowing the integration of more than 10,000 transistors in a single IC, and later millions and then billions of transistors in a single device. The widespread adoption of MOS transistors revolutionized the electronics industry. As of 2013, billions of MOS transistors are manufactured every day. The MOS transistor has been the fundamental building block of digital electronics since the late 20th century, paving the way for the digital age. The MOS transistor is credited with transforming society around the world, and is the building block of every microprocessor, memory chip and telecommunication circuit in use as of 2016.