A Delphi study of the multimedia phenomenon

Microcomputers are evolving from productivity tools into information delivery systems. Multimedia will bring an increasing number of new users to the world's ever increasing amount of information by bringing people closer to information through its ability to express information in the most intuitive manner.;Multimedia is a technique which uses enabling technologies orchestrated by the computer in order to present information in a manner best suited to the user.;It is a solution that can meet the current educational crisis of an ever increasing amount of information to contend with in a world of MTV and Nintendo. With proper implementation of multimedia and a rekindled thirst for achieving excellence in education and in the workplace, life long learning will become an opportunity for meeting our needs rather than a burden.;Multimedia currently has the largest following in business presentations. Continued growth depends on the overcoming of obstacles. Obstacles faced by multimedia and needing solutions include costs of hardware/software, development costs, awareness of the financial benefits and the adoption of industry evolvable standards.;Once these have been meet and businesses have proven the financial feasibility of multimedia and have implemented multimedia-based training, education will quickly follow in its adoption of multimedia. Once this initial impact is over multimedia will gradually work its way into the home for consumer applications and as alternatives for the educational applications currently being used in homes.;Within the next three to five years multimedia's potential will be realized and computers will have multimedia capabilities already installed. Multimedia technology is being embedded directly into mainstream versions of operation systems. New technologies and extensions of existing technologies such as networks will allow multimedia to grow.