This book provides a comprehensive treatment of the rapidly changing world of Web-based business technologies and their often-disruptive innovations. The history of the Web is a short one. Indeed many college graduates today were not even born when the Web first emerged. It is therefore an opportune time to view the Web as having reached the point of graduation. The Web has led to new ways in which businesses connect and operate, and how individuals communicate and socialize; related technologies include cloud computing, social commerce, crowd sourcing, and the Internet of Things, to name but a few. These developments, including their technological foundations and business impacts, are at the heart of the book. It contextualizes these topics by providing a brief history of the World Wide Web, both in terms of the technological evolution and its resultant business impacts.
The book was written for a broad audience, including technology managers and st
udents in higher education. It is also intended as a guide for people who grew up with a background in business administration or engineering or a related area but who, in the course of their career paths, have reached a point where IT-related decisions have become their daily business, e.g., in digital transformation. The book describes the most important Web technologies and related business applications, and especially focuses on the business implications of these technologies. As such, it offers a solid technology- and business-focused view on the impact of the Web, and balances rules and approaches for strategy development and decision making with a certain technical understanding of what goes on “behind the scenes.”
Gottfried Vossen is Professor of Computer Science in the Department of Information Systems at the University of Münster in Germany. Since 2004 he has been a Director of the European Research Center for Information Systems (ERCIS) in Muenster. His research interests include conceptual as well as application-oriented problems concerning databases, information systems, process modeling, and various forms of Web 2.0 applications as well as implications.
Frank Schönthaler is Managing Partner, Chairman and CEO of the PROMATIS group. He is responsible for corporate and product strategies and manages the core operating business. As Executive Consultant, he advises international clients in strategy development and business reengineering. He is the leader of the Business solutions community at the DOAG - German Oracle users group.
Stuart Dillon is an Associate Professor within the Department of Management Systems in the
Waikato Management School, New Zealand. Most of his teaching and research is in the broad area of emerging business technologies. In particular, he explores how business adopts contemporary technologies and the impact such adoption has on them.
