Meaning of "one order of magnitude improvement"

Solution 1:

An order of magnitude is:

the class of scale or magnitude of any amount, where each class contains values of a fixed ratio to the class preceding it. In its most common usage, the amount being scaled is 10 and the scale is the (base 10) exponent being applied to this amount (therefore, to be an order of magnitude greater is to be 10 times as large). Such differences in order of magnitude can be measured on the logarithmic scale in "decades" (i.e. factors of ten).

To start, let's simplify the excerpt:

There is no development that promises an improvement of even one order of magnitude.

Since an "order of magnitude" is used to mean a major improvement, we can say that there is no development that gives a major improvement.

Solution 2:

An order of magnitude is 10 times.

One order of magnitude is ten times greater, two orders of magnitude is 100 times greater, etc.

The phrase can be used literally to mean something that is ten times faster, better, or the like, but can also be used figuratively to mean something that is vastly different than before.

It can be used both positively and negatively:

The computer was orders of magnitude better than the abacus.
Last night's hangover was an order of magnitude worse than the one I had after your bachelor party last year.

In the context of this phrase, there are no breakthrough developments that will really significantly increase productivity, reliability, or simplicity.

Solution 3:

Looks like somebody trying to add spurious precision to his argument. Improving reliability from 99% to 99.9% (or 50% to 95%) would, mathematically, be "a one order of magnitude improvement", but productivity probably can't be measured this way, and simplicity?!?