Timeflash

In general the number of soft and hardware suppliers are decreasing. A big shake out takes place during the starting nineties.
In the software world many mergers and partnerships are made, but also splitting up the mergers just made and partnerships is very common.

The users-trend goes more towards multi-media appliances, a combination of pictures, sound and databases of all sorts.

CD-I (CD inter-active) does not only have a fixed place in the computer-training's but also in the amusement world. Especially, the bulky games (most adventure games) are profiting from the bigger storage capacity of the CD-ROM (± 650 Mb). This gives this medium a great boost and the supply increases tenfold.
The more assertive users demands mainly improved quality software instead of software with all kind of gadgets. This is noticeable on the market, manufacturers are reluctant to offer many new programs. Programs marketed with many bugs will be quick replaced by an upgrade (often free of charge).

The trend of the computation center for a client-server environment has continued. Main frames disappear and are being replaced by powerful mini's which are using UNIX.
The amount of employees working in the computation centers are decreasing tremendously through the automation of the daily maintenance tasks and the improved software of the mini computers at a distance. In some cases is even a rarity that people walk around in the rooms of the computation centers.

Technology which was first only available for big companies can now be acquired by small companies: DAT tape drives, hard discs of 1 G or more, CD-WORM discs etc.