Frontier Journal       

Exclusive Frontier Coverage on Technology and Business Issues in High-tech Industry              Vol. 5 No. 2 February 2008

R5 - Empower Business Virtualization and Life Virtualization in the Information and Service Prosume Era

Did you notice the Vision of Hometown Innovation Automation Inc has been changed from long-existing formation of INformation, search instead of REsearch to INformation, search instead of REsearch, from Information Prosume to Service Prosum? and now our goal is to Empower Business Virtualization and Life Virtualization with Web 3.0. Around a decade passed since the concept of Web Service was proposed, and nothing exciting has been deployed for seriously applications. Why?

No one would doubt the core of Web 3.0 is Web Service, the reason is as follows:

. Web 1.0, informational, separation of information production and information consumption, information consumption is free, information production replies on regular online ads revenue. Yahoo! is the icon of Web 1.0 success. For web 1.0, both its core technology (HTTP based web browser and web server) and business model are trivial.

. Web 2.0, navigational, information prosume, or combination of information production and information consumption, one can be both information consumer and information producer. Google is the icon of Web 2.0 success; with its famous AdWords and Adsense programs based on new online ads revenue models. For web 2.0, both its core technology (hybrid technologies instead of single one) and business model are non-trivial, but still not very sophisticated .

. Web 3.0, transactional, service prosume, or combination of service production and service consumption. The Most Wanted will be the icon of Web 3.0 success. For Web 3.0, its core technology has been almost there, XML, SOAP, WSDL, UDDI, though not perfect, while its business model is still nowhere, which means everyone has a chance

Now back to my question, in my opinion the reason why Web Service cannot achieve even a moderate degree of success, hence some people claimed that Web 3.0 is still a research topic, is that people have been focused too much on its core technologies instead of its business model. In EDA history, the reason both Verilog and VHDL got well accepted by the industry was due to the mature of logic synthesis, the demands of application drove the success of HDL Verilog and VHDL, 2 primary HDL standards. For Web Service, it is exactly the same, where are the application demands, nowhere.

Business world and technology world are indeed two totally different worlds, it is really a pity there are few technology gurus who are also acute businessmen, past, present and future. So what to do? Change the world or let the world change you. s that possible for every vendor who is offering Web Services to its clients to tie all of its fortune to a so-called Web Services platform provider such as Amazon.com in Web 3.0 era? Definitely not, that is closeness and centralization instead of openness and decentralization. That is like to use Microsoft software only in Web 0.0 era, go surfing at Yahoo! only in Web 1.0 era, and do searching at Google only in Web 2.0 era. It only can be happened when the universe becomes the globe, and all nations are united to form a true United Nation, not in my lifetime for sure.

The essence of Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 are openness and decentralization, as opposed to closeness and centralization in Web 0.0 and Web 1.0. The driver of Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 are Prosume, from Information Prosume to Service Prosume. For Web 3.0 to take off, Web Service has to success, and for Web Service to success, it has to be open So what is Business Virtualization? You¡¯ve heard lots of buzz words like ERP, CRM, SCM, and you are using them at work daily probably, no matter whatever underlying technologies are supporting them, it is Enterprise 1.0. Time is changing, technology is changing, the most important thing, is people¡¯s mindset is changing is as well. Not 1 month equals 1 day, or 1 week equals 1 day any more, it is now 1 year equals 1 day. The Olympic motto is ¡°Citius, Altius, Fortius.¡± These three Latin words mean ¡°Swifter, Higher, Stronger.¡± can be applied in today¡¯s business environment precisely. So how to compete? Go Enterprise 2.0 from Enterprise 1.0, or lead-frog directly to Enterprise 2.0 from Enterprise 1.0. In my opinion, it is Business Virtualization ascending from Business Solidation, which is Enterprise 1.0

OS (so software) is being virtualized, and some startups are working on true hardware virtualization, so computation will be fully virtualization soon. So the timing is perfect for Business Virtualization, the age of Enterprise 2.0 is coming. Can we have a piece of pie? You bet So what is Life Virtualization, as Life 2.0 is being defined?

Life 0.0 - Before 1900, most people lived with several dozen of miles with no modern transportations such as cars, trains, and airplanes available for long distance traveling. Most of goods people consumed were produced by themselves, so called Prosume

Life 1.0 - 1900 ~ 2000, most people lived with several hundred of miles with modern transportations such as cars, trains, and air planes available for long distance traveling. Most of goods people consumed were produced by mass production instead of in-house self-production; consumers decide the trend of markets

Life 2.0 - 2000 ~ ?, most people will not need to travel for shopping, banking business meeting, personal meeting (such as dating), doctor visiting, school attending, just to name a few. Most of those activities that requires non-trivial traveling now can be done through the Internet: online shopping, online banking, online conferencing, online medical self-diagnosis, online learning. Is that amazing? The luxury of living in the Ivory Tower was only available to just a few of elites, now are accessible to the general public.

Of course, Life Virtualization and Business Virtualization are chicken-and-egg problems, to implement Life Virtualization, you need to deploy Business Virtualization, and vice versa. So long way to go.

Just-in-time (JIT) manufacturing, invented by Toyota, is a process by which companies don¡¯t keep lots of excess inventory; instead, they manufacture a product as an order comes in. JIT is an important topic for manufacturers. Companies that employ it effectively can decrease their inventories and increase overall efficiencies. Decreasing inventory allows companies to decrease waste, which saves lots of money; however, this often comes at the cost of slower completion times to fill orders.

Now JIT is not enough in today¡¯s Information/Service Prosume era, what we need is not just JIT (time), but also JIP (Place), JIW (Way) for JII (Information) and JIS (Service), namely R5, Right Information and Service to the Right People at the Right Place, Right Time in Right Way) Automation.

We are really excited about this fascinating opportunity, never too late!