Dr. Nina Aversano's doctoral thesis focused on consumer rejection of new technology. While businesses widely accepted computers for productivity, introducing computers for home use was initially met with skepticism. Many early home computer companies that drove initial adoption, like Commodore, are now defunct. Personal computers gained widespread home acceptance primarily through their entertainment value as gaming devices, rather than early visions of them as home versions of office computers. Over time, the distinction between home and office computers disappeared as portable devices took on both roles.

1. Consumer Reaction to
New Technology

2. Consumer Reaction to New Technology
A seasoned executive with many years of C-suite experience in the telecom
industry, Nina Aversano, Ph.D., today teaches graduate and undergraduate
students at the College of Mount Saint Vincent in Riverdale, New York. In
addition, she serves as president and CEO of Aversano Consulting, LLC, the firm
she founded in 2001. Dr. Nina Aversano’s doctoral thesis focused on consumer
rejection of new technology.

3. Consumer Reaction to New Technology
A challenge facing entrepreneurs and established companies alike is how to
develop and sell new technologies. There is a broad range of scholarly studies
exploring the reasons that people give for accepting or rejecting new technology.
For example, computers were widely accepted by businesses for their financial
and other productivity applications. The proposal to produce computers for home
use, though, was greeted with derision from many quarters. The proposed uses
for home computers, such as storing recipes, doing personal finances, and
keeping holiday card lists, only drew more snickers.

4. Consumer Reaction to New Technology
The near-universal acceptance of computers today, including tablets, net pads,
notebooks, laptops, and desktop computers signifies a victory that was not
without its casualties. Many of the companies that were first into the home
computer marketplace either no longer exist or have abandoned the computer
field entirely. They were critical to the concept’s success, though. The computer
model that set the record for most sales, at 22 million units, was the Commodore
64, a model designed for home use that was discontinued in 1993 shortly before
the company filed for bankruptcy.

5. Consumer Reaction to New Technology
Personal computers got their foot in the door of the American home not by being
“lite” home versions of the computers they used at work, but primarily for their
entertainment value, especially as gaming devices. Home-oriented productivity
software was made for the Commodores and other brands, but it was the various
games that drove the market. Over time, of course, the line between the home
or personal computer and the office computer blurred and vanished, and
countless people today play games, watch movies, chat with friends, and
perform all kinds of work, in the office and at home, on the same lightweight
portable devices.