Summary
Convergence of computing, telephony and entertainment - Includes profiles of roundtable participants and related article on the CEOs of the future - CE Roundtable - Panel Discussion
The emergence of the Internet, the deregulation of the telecommunications industry and other recent developments are paving the way for the convergence of computing, telephony and entertainment. For the business community, the union among the worlds of telephones, computers and media presents the challenge of how to identify market opportunities and how to take advantage of them. Chief Executive magazine and Deloitte & Touche LLP co-sponsored a roundtable discussion that provided an opportunity for a group of business leaders to express their views and exchange opinions on the economic aspect of the telephony-computing-entertainment convergence. The participants included Signet Banking CEO Malcom McDonald, Norcross CEO James McDonald, Alex. Brown International Vice Chmn. J. Carter Beese, Deloitte & Touche CEO J. Michael Cook and Bell-Atlantic CEO Raymond Smith.See the full content of this document
Extract
Are your ready for convergence?
As computing, telephony, and entertainment converge, technology is outrunning marketplace economics. This soon will change. CE gathered chief executives from within as well as on the sidelines of the convergence revolution to identify market opportunities - and discover how to seize them.
The convergence of computing, telephony, and, indeed, all digital forms of communications and entertainment is finally at hand. This is the result of a confluence of independent, but related, developments - the most noteworthy of which is that the Internet, the collection of some 50,000 computer networks in 90 countries, has reached critical mass. But the Internet revolution was preceded by earlier Evolutions; such as the overthrow of mainframe dominance by personal computers, which today number about 300 million worldwide.Observers claim we are on the verge of another quantum leap.Now, the hegemony of the desktop PC is about to be overthrown by cheap, so-called "dumb" terminals connected to the Internet that will use simple languages such as Sun Microsystems' Java. Thus, the Internet becomes the computer, and the terminal becomes as user-friendly as a phone. Add to this digital cocktail the integration of faxes and telephones with entertainment. The Internet, and its best-known subset, the World Wide Web, is a network of networks with 65 million users worldwide, growing by 1.5 million a month. No wonder its emergence raises fascinating possibilities about radical new businesses and the co...See the full content of this document
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