In just a short period of rapid development, the Internet has become an incredibly important platform for the IT and communications industry in particular, and for all of our lives in general.
Moreover, recent trends indicate that in the near future, the Internet will gradually blur physical and geographical boundaries, ready to serve people anywhere.
Connecting Anytime, Anywhere
With the increasing convergence of broadband access technologies, particularly modern mobile and wireless technologies like 3G, Wi-Fi, and WiMax, the ability to access the Internet is expanding to more users across various geographical regions. Intel predicts that WiMax will be a superior means of bringing the Internet to the most remote areas in developing countries, thanks to its wide-area wireless coverage without the need for cables. In urban areas, the options for accessing the Internet are becoming more diverse, ranging from dial-up, ADSL, cable, and satellite to Wi-Fi hotspots, WiMax, and mobile networks like GSM, GPRS, CDMA, and EDGE.
Motorola is one of the companies actively promoting seamless connectivity among the aforementioned technologies. “Seamless mobility” is a key focus of the Moto4You program organized by Motorola in Hanoi on October 18 and 19. According to David Knapp Jr., General Director of Motorola Vietnam, this capability is achieved through an Internet Protocol (IP)-based infrastructure that allows users to maintain continuous and unlimited connectivity even while switching between multiple networks and different devices.
Motorola has showcased integrated technology that enables the transfer of voice calls and multimedia content from home phones or computers to mobile phones and car screens while on the move, continuing to office phones or computers without interruption. At that point, users are almost “enveloped” in a network of information processed by smart devices, automatically switching connection methods based on the user’s location.
Will Software Run Entirely Over the Network?
As connectivity improves and expands, gradually breaking geographical barriers, the Internet is advancing closer to becoming a massive super machine that allows anyone, from anywhere, to harness its power. In the words of Scott McNealy, CEO of Sun Microsystems, “the network is the computer.”
This inevitable development marks the dawn of a completely new era for the software industry, as everything we directly use and leverage through the Internet will be through network-based software, rather than being installed on individual personal computers (PCs), as is the case with most software we currently use.
Recently, Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, emphasized the role of software in a world he predicts will be filled with streams of information transmitted via the Internet. According to him, these streams of information will eventually replace all physical media like films, CDs, and DVDs. People will no longer store data and applications on these media or PCs but will retrieve them from the network whenever needed.
Although Bill Gates did not explicitly state it, many experts believe this trend will present significant challenges for established software giants like Microsoft, which has prospered for years through PC-based software systems. At the same time, this represents a tremendous opportunity for a new generation of software companies, exemplified by Google.
A series of seemingly individual applications and services that Google has launched recently are viewed as pieces of a larger puzzle depicting its ambition to “push” the entire IT industry from PCs onto the Internet. In this scenario, Google would become a foundational computing network, offering a wide range of rich and diverse applications to anyone with Internet access.
Looking ahead, according to Gartner, by the end of 2006, at least two companies (likely including Google) will provide office application suites over the Internet, directly competing with Microsoft’s Office suite. This is just the beginning; who can predict where the world of Internet software will lead us next and what significant changes it will bring?
