Designing Web-Based Training: How to Teach Anyone Anything Anywhere Anytime

1.4. WBT IS WELL UNDER WAY

WBT and the technologies on which it is based are advancing rapidly and growing exponentially.

1.4.1. Technology advances daily

The core technologies of WBT are literally growing exponentially. Computer processor speed doubles every 20 months. Memory doubles every 20 months. Disk space doubles every year. Communications speed doubles every 24 months.

As a result, the computers we have today have eight times the processor speed and memory, communicate three times faster, and have disks thirty-two times larger than the ones we had five years ago—and cost 40% less.

1.4.2. The Web is growing even faster

According to a Netcraft survey, the number of Web sites increased fivefold in just two years, reaching 5 million in April 1999. In 1993, there were 130 Internet domain names registered. In 1998, there were 3,000,000.

1.4.3. WBT is growing just as rapidly

The growth in WBT matches that of its technologies. According to International Data Corporation (IDC), WBT is growing at a rate of over 100% per year. Expenditures for WBT should reach about $2.4 billion USD in 2000, $5 billion in 2001 and $10 billion in 2002. According to IDC, sales of intranet- and Internet-delivered educational content and equipment will reach $1.1 billion USD in 1999-double the figure for 1998 [14].

Training professionals seem to agree. Seventy-eight percent of respondents in a survey reported in The 1999 CBT Report, said that WBT was growing, while almost none felt it was shrinking ...