Online Information Industry

NAME: Zakari Andrew

REG. NO: MIM/EDUC/6517/2009-2010

SUBJECT: Online information industry

ASSIGNMENT: Read and summarize the topic: the new information industry.

A converged information industry operating within the context of an advanced information infrastructure will be a huge boost for US business. The convergence of information industries will happen because the technological and business imperatives are competing. An information highway will also entail new products and services and hence new jobs.

This technological movement is triggering a corresponding change in the economic forces underlying the new information industry. Combined, the forces will lead to unprecedented sociological change and upheaval. The primary driving force is that the technology forming the core of an expansive array of information related businesses is becoming both electronic and digital. The building blocks of this digital world-hardware, software, fiber optics, and microprocessors-will re-align the computer, telecommunications, and other information industries.

In the process, a new competitive landscape will be spawned. Overtime, that landscape will give rise to many new commercial entities, enabled through an amalgam of digital versatility and electronic affordability. The same landscape will also be littered with the remains of once dominant companies and institutions unable or unwilling to grasp the magnitude and nature of change. With digital electronic fast becoming the dominant technology for every existing information-based business, a re-alignment of the broader information industry has become inevitable. In short, information-oriented business will, over the next ten-fifteen years, re-organize themselves into the following three broad groups.

· Players involved in the creation and collection of diverse types of information content.

· Players involved in the manufacture of a wide variety of information appliances.

· Players organized to engage in various modes of information transport.

CONCLUSION AND CRITIQUE

The information industry is far from being a mature industry as evidenced by the low penetration of even basic phone service in a large part of the world. While the information industry is about a sixth of the US economy, it account for a mere fraction of that amount for the vast majority of nations. However, that proportion will surely increase, fueling unprecedented growth. Coupled with the dramatic new capabilities made possible by phenomenal and unrelenting advances in technology. It is evident that the information industry is in perhaps the most exciting period ever seen in any industry.

To succeed in the new environment, companies most learn how to operate on a global scale; partners with other, create break through service, concepts; customize theft offering to ever - smaller market fragments; increase their speed; flexibility, and efficiency; empower and develop their employees