A billion of anything is a lot, and the billionth computer mouse has rolled off the production line at Logitech, as the device itself celebrates its 40th birthday next week.
Logitech’s general manager Rory Dooley told the BBC:
"It’s rare in human history that a billionth of anything has been shipped by one company. Look at any other industry and it has never happened. This is a significant milestone."
The company has begun a competition to find that billionth mouse, with clues as to where it is posted on the company blog, and $1000 in Logitech products going to the winner.
But a big question mark hangs over the future of the mouse, what with laptop touchpads, touchscreen devices, and surface computers the possible wave of the future. Can the humble mouse survive? Dooley feels it can.
"The reality is it’s always easy for people to drum up interest in a story by making an extreme statement. And in the story of the "mouse is dead" campaign by Bill Gates a few months ago, that was started to drum up interest in Windows 7, the next version of the operating system."
"The challenge with these new technologies is going to be will you touch a screen that is two feet away from you a thousand times a day? Is touch accurate enough to let you get into the cell of a spreadsheet?”
"Those are just some simple questions we believe will not necessarily be answered by the touch interface of tomorrow."
Time will tell if the mouse lives to celebrate 50, or if Logitech gets to make two billion of them.
