The Evolvement of Classical IT Business Models
13
1993
marks the birth year of the modern Internet economy. Due to the fact that
certain standards for communication have been harmonized, and decentralized
hubs were able to connect PCs and servers across the geographical boundaries of
countries, the Internet as a multimedia platform gained in relevancy in terms of a
noteworthy and evolving tool for business affairs. While the standards for
communication and packet handling have been revised and methods have changed
over the last decades, the idea of a supranational connected network for personal
and business purposes is still present (Zerdick, Picot, Schrape, Artope,
Goldhammer, & Heger, 2001, pp. 151-154).
Although the Internet of today is often considered as a commodity, there are still
ongoing improvements, such as the development from the “monologue” driven,
static Web 1.0 to the interactive, user involving Web 2.0 to the semantic executing
Web 3.0 up to the symbiotic, “next web” Web 4.0. Currently we find ourselves at the
threshold of Web 3.0 to Web 4.0. The Web 3.0 era initiated the provision of services
through the Internet. This was possible through the establishment of huge server
farms, which could provide sufficient computing power to serve an undefined
number of end-users. The semantic executing form of Web 3.0 refers to the
communication gap between human entities and computer applications. This
missing link demands a common denominator, a specific semantic, in order to
create a lingua franca between man and computers. Web 4.0 tries to fill this gap.
Users will create the Internet, companies will be shaped by the customers’
engagement (Social Customer Relationship Management), and cloud services will
replace local software and services. The symbiotic form of Web 4.0 refers to the
seamless transition between offline and online (Larson, 2012) & (Burus, 2012) &
(
Fleerackers, 2011).
Currently a company deals with data created internally as part of their business
processes and Big Data surrounding the business environment. A company thus
needs to act on three layers: structuring the data internally, making external data
feasible for business purposes, and creating a link between external and internal
environment. The first step to create an internal data structure is done with the help
of an integrated IT system.
