- On a recent vacation, I was struck by the degree
in which many of my activities were
entirely facilitated by digital means.
From booking the trip to making dinner reservations,
requesting transportation, getting directions,
sharing pictures and videos and so much more.
For so many of us, we take this all for granted.
We live in a world where many of our needs
are instantly addressed via mobile devices
and services connected to the internet.
This environment of online coordination delivery
and accessibility, coupled with new
radical business models born online are all
the products of a digital transformation.
Together, we are changing the world through digitization,
but surprisingly, it's also changing each of us.
It does this by changing our expectations
of what is possible.
It does this by modifying our behaviors.
I bet each of us can think of several ways
we live differently as a result of owning a Smartphone.
And while it may seem like we've reached
a satisfactory plateau, all evidence suggests
we're all just getting started
and the digital transformation ahead
will be much greater, and more disruptive
than what has come before.
We find ourselves today as what Steve Case,
former Chief Executive Officer
at America Online calls, The Third Wave.
It's a really valuable way of understanding
the evolution of the internet.
The first years of broad commercial use of the internet,
known as The First Wave, was the period of 1985 to 1999.
These years were dominated by big players such as
Microsoft, IBM, HP, Apple, Sun Microsystems, Cisco,
and information services such as America Online and Prodigy.
These companies, through innovation were building
the early hardware and software of the internet.
During this period, websites were relatively rudimentary,
largely focusing on broadcasting static information.
If you wanted to find out the product sold at a company,
and perhaps its mailing address,
a static website would be adequate.
After all, connections to the internet for the
average user were enabled by slow and narrow-band
telephone dial-up access, and delivering
anything more sophisticated, would
just result in a frustrating experience.
In no time at all, connections improved
and sophisticated web tools emerged,
enabling dynamic websites that changed based on
circumstances such as user location
and input interactions on a website.
The Second Wave happened during the years 2000 to 2015.
This period was defined by companies and areas
such as search, social, and Ecommerce.
Examples include Google, Amazon, Facebook,
eBay, Salesforce, and Priceline.
These services built rich applications
on top of the infrastructure of the internet.
This period was also defined by the on-boarding
of billions of new internet users.
In 1996, there were 36 million internet users.
By 2000, the number was 10 times that, at 361 million.
10 years later in 2010, the number had reached 2 billion.
By the end of the Second Wave in 2015,
internet usage had reached 3.3 billion unique global users.
The Second Wave also included the use of mobile phones,
and particularly, the arrival of the Smartphone,
as devices for regular access to the internet.
The Smartphone also enabled the development
of millions of new applications,
in what has become known as the app economy.
This ecosystem gave birth to app-native solutions,
those built first as an app, such as Uber and Instagram,
the Smart Home and digital assistants like Siri.
In 2007, there were around 100 million
global Smartphone users.
By 2015, the number had reached over 1.8 billion.
While the first Wave was defined by the
building blocks of hardware and software,
this enabled the software as a
service period of The Second Wave.
The Third Wave, which begins in 2016
and continues to this day, is not defined
as hardware or software, but as a
period of internet ubiquity.
This is when the internet is effectively built into
a vast array of products and services.
To paraphrase Steve Case, to say something is
internet-enabled in The Third Wave,
will be as ludicrous as saying
something is electricity-enabled.
The Third Wave is a new era of business models,
and re-invention that have internet access
and wireless connectivity as basic enablers.
This Third Wave is a catalyst to further
disruptive digital transformation.
It's already changing our homes, health care,
government, transportation, and more.
This accelerating digital transformation
has created the core conditions for
a Fourth industrial revolution.