Diploma Thesis from the year 2006 in the subject Engineering - Industrial Engineering and Management, grade: 1,3, University of Applied Sciences Rosenheim, language: English, abstract: Germany depends heavily on the only raw material available within its national territoryknowledge. Nevertheless, major management faults due to a lack of management knowledge have led to closures of prosperous companies and in many cases to layoffs in the thousands in the recent past. This questions the abilities of companies and their decision makers and, once again, the actual quality of our most precious good. Managers cannot talk themselves out of this by stating that Germany is no longer able to produce competitively, as this is not true. The challenge is to make products people both need and enjoy. To achieve this goal, this thesis provides a tailored solution for the information and communication market. The topic deals with one of the most promising technologies since the internet, namely the next generation of user interfaces - personal intelligent user interfaces (PIUIs). Some call it the Pan-dora s Box of the information century, whereas others consider it to be the salvation for the mobile generation. This thesis might not be able to give a final answer to this dispute but provides a toolkit for the strategic technology management to cope with new technologies. Fur-thermore, a methodology framework is developed and applied to evaluate the usability of intelligent user interfaces. Usability isthekey factor for broad user acceptance and success in a highly competitive market environment like the communication sector. Beyond that, the work presents a list of high potential use cases for PIUIs till 2008. First products of this list have been presented or even rolled out earlier this year by major ICT companies like Nokia and Microsoft. This proof of validity and the fact that this paper includes a comprehensive list of indepth analysed next generation user interface technologies make this work a must read for every determined and responsible manager.
