Commodities of the New Economy (Page 3 of 6)

1. Commodities of the New Economy
2. Hierarchy of Cyberneeds
3. Shift Happens
4. The New Economy
5. The New Commodities
6. Summary

Shift Happens - From Creation to the Webless Internet

The earliest mechanical and electronic computers were intended to be used as census tabulation machines. However, as the potential for computational leviathans became clear, users needs and wants started to bump the limitations of the devices, which were bounded by an ever shifting set of technical and societal limitations. Each lifting of a barrier was greeted by a collision with the next. Once we figured out how to get information into the machines, we had to figure out how to save the information. Once that was accomplished, being able to manipulate and process the stored information became paramount. As that Rubicon was crossed, the barrier became gaining access to enough information to more effectively meet a wider set of user requirements. This need was filled with limited success until the emergence of a standards-based environment for organizing computers and information on a global basis - the Internet and the worldwide web, or Web. Now that we've created new ways to access and review remote information, interactions will occur more and more between services and applications, with minimal human involvement - the Webless Internet.

Aside from the specific functions and benefits that may inure to consumers and enterprises, the attendant connectivity infrastructure of the Internet and the realization about how much information can be accessed with Internet standards-based networks has driven a fundamental shift in computing from one oriented toward processing information to one of accessing information.

Recent developments in standards and a desire for more rapid interaction with digital information sources has led to the potential for less actual human interaction with high-speed digital information sources. Emergence of transportable and scaleable standards for dynamically describing information and data has created the potential for interactions in the access-driven world to shift from people/Web site interactions, to interactions between processes and services. We call this "the Webless Internet."

The stages of computing are described in more detail in the accompanying paragraphs.

  • Creation Driven (pre-1970)
    • In this stage of the paradigm, the limitation was on the organization's ability to create information and place it in formats that could be processed. The user's limitations in creating datasets and information minimized the need for processing and storage.

  • Storage Driven (1970-1980)
    • In the storage stage, information creation was mastered (to some extent), moving the critical junction to the storage side. The issue was whether enough information could be saved in static and dynamic forms for sufficient duration to conduct useful calculations and processing.

  • Processing Driven (1980-1995)
    • With the development of core memory and static storage media (drums, tapes) the paradigm shifted to processing. It was now possible to create and store sufficient information to exhaust the processing resources available. This stage of evolution remained in place for an extended period of time, as advances in storage and processing technology continued to outstrip the information available. Advances in software development continued to place pressure on the information processing and storage components of the paradigm, as more complex and visually rich environments and applications emerged.

  • Access Driven (1995-2000)
    • Applications and information have merged, with users often unable to differentiate between them. Advances in networking and the emergence of standards-based, content-type-neutral information delivery protocols have shifted emphasis to information access, away from processing. Object technology has allowed applications to be abstracted as just another information source, and the physical placement of processing and storage capacity becomes moot as long as the quality of interaction is sufficient. Within this paradigm, the processing power of the desktop delivery vehicle becomes irrelevant, and the information access potential of the desktop and the network becomes paramount. Public and private networks will substitute for what we now know as the operating system, providing information retrieval and storage services. The Internet and people searching for and accessing information via the Web epitomize the access-driven computing stage.

  • Webless Internet (2001-??)
    • In this stage of computing, the Web-oriented Internet that characterized the generic access-driven stage is replaced by a stage of computing in which the fundamental transactions that occur are between processes and services, as opposed to people and Web sites.

    The stages of evolution are represented in following graphic.
    Access-based computing and the Webless Internet shifts emphasis away from being physically proximate to the actual computing source, to having access to networked computing resources. We believe that the essence of the Internet is networked connectivity to vast computing potential and information. What will drive this model in the future will be access to information and network-resident services and processes as well as the convergence of information and application. All of this promotes transportability and is the fundamental reason workers and systems can be geographically dispersed.

    Part 4 - The New Economy