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by zmonx 3098 days ago
25 years for acceptance are very well aligned with the timeline that Richard P. Gabriel has outlined in "Models of Software Acceptance":

• Technology in the lab (t=0)

• Technology in the first company (t=2–10 years post-lab)

• Technology in the first successful company (t=5–20 years post-lab)

• Technology acceptance (t=10–25 years post-lab)

Source:

https://www.dreamsongs.com/Files/AcceptanceModels.pdf

In these slides, Richard gives several examples that match this model and includes several additional explanations.

For example:

• First window system: Stanford/SRI/Xerox PARC ~1975, MIT ~1976

• First commercial use: Symbolics (1979), LMI (1979), Xerox Star (~1980), Apple Lisa (~1982), Apple Macintosh (1984)

• First use by a successful company: Microsoft (~1989)

• Technology acceptance: Microsoft (~1995)

Spreadsheets are another example that is given in the slides. In fact, 25 years for acceptance are quite common in software. Sometimes, it also takes much longer.