Technologies for the Information Society

Foreword

The Information Society has arrived. It is already affecting both business structures and management and creating opportunities for new products and services. It is true that at the moment the effects are patchy but, as the Society develops, its changes will become more widespread and evident. No one in modern business can afford to ignore new technology but must understand its capabilities and ask themselves how they can use it in order to stay competitive or, better still, to improve their competitiveness.

The papers in this book make a valuable contribution to appreciating new information and communication technologies and being able to answer the questions, which their application entails. The book are targeted at all those who have any responsibility for business and research strategies and aims to increase awareness of the emerging technologies and helps to give an understanding of the implications. It covers three major elements of the Information Society, namely Electronic Commerce, Multimedia and Embedded Systems; describing the technology that is being developed, suggesting the possible effects and describing how some companies are reacting to the new challenges.

In this compilation the three editors have assembled over a hundred papers from International experts that describe current thinking, research projects and emerging technology. They have grouped the papers into five sections. The first section looks at policy issues and business strategies. The next section considers matters of particular interest to the smaller businesses. The final three sections address, in turn, the applications, development tools and emerging technologies in Electronic Commerce, Multimedia and Embedded Systems.

I have suggested that this should be a reference and survival book for the Information Society and that it will help businessmen and women to examine their methods of working and decide what new products they could develop. It is relevant to add that the European Commission programmes have helped many organisations to participate in creating new skills and technologies that contribute to the Information Society in Europe. This book is supported by the European Commission and many of the papers stem from research projects in its ESPRIT and other programmes. Accordingly it may help answer a further question: 'What contribution can we make to the progress of the Information Society?'

Michel Carpentier
Honorary Director General
The European Commission