ABSTRACT
Infrastructures and Business Structures ............................................................... 27 The Many Facets of Convergence ........................................................................ 31
Convergence of Technologies ..................................................................... 31 Convergence of Infrastructures ................................................................... 32 Convergence of Processes ........................................................................... 34 Convergence of Services ............................................................................. 34 Convergence of Terminals .......................................................................... 35 Convergence of Actors ................................................................................ 35
Technological Evolution and Ecosystems ............................................................ 36 Conclusions .......................................................................................................... 43 References ............................................................................................................ 44 Additional Readings ............................................................................................. 44
This chapter provides a different view of the cosmos of enterprises and the way these can use communications systems. In doing so, I will be exploring the evolution of telecommunications systems in a broad sense, that is, their technology and their business models. Lessons from the evolution of living systems are used to study enterprises in loosely coupled ecosystems. For example, we learn from living systems that differentiation, and not convergence, increases the value of an ecosystem. Charles Darwin claimed [1] that the appearance of more and more variants, fi rst, and species, next, leads to divergence. This divergence is clearly noticeable in ecosystems where the observation period covers millions of years. It is also apparent for shorter observation interval, with faster reproduction cycles, as it is the case for bacteria. So although the convergence of information technologies has been under the spotlight for many years now, the continuous stream of new technologies, new
services, and new players seems to indicate that we are in a “divergence*” period. The interplay of market, technologies, and players, however, may give the impression of convergence and this is something I will address later in this chapter. The box on “Technological Darwinism” explains the parallels that can be made between the evolution of species and the evolution of technologies in the market place. In the case of information and communication technologies (ICT), one important enabler for many of these ecosystems is what telecommunications operators call “platforms.” The box “From Platforms to Ecosystems” outlines a few of these business ecosystems.
