by Csilla Zsigri

The other day, as I was reading the press on the plane, a few very interesting articles in the ‘Companies&Markets’ section drew my attention and made me realize that the ‘future internet’ was already happening. In academic and research circles, there is a lot of thinking around the future of the internet –which is by the way becoming an over-used term-, while market players are already making it happen…

Microsoft is pushing ahead with online versions of some of its core software, among them a cloud operating system designed to extend Windows to the internet. Moving in the opposite direction, Google is trying to extend its internet platform to PCs. Google´s decision to include a computer operating system in its Chrome web browser shows that browsers are breaking out of their traditional role. Browsers will no longer be application icons on a PC desktop. Microsoft has also been working on a prototype browser called Gazelle, which would be tied in with the OS and run web apps more securely. Apple´s Safari 4.0 has been designed so users can flick through previously viewed pages (like iTunes´ cover flow feature). Opera added a server to its browser, and through Opera Unite, they will allow users to host their own websites, share files and stream media. And browsers are just the starting point of the further evolution of the internet. Today’s work on the development of the browser is helping fuel the future internet.

People start their day on the Web, using different tools. The forthcoming Google Wave is a reinvention of e-mail that uses browser technologies to blend in instant messaging and file sharing in a new kind of interface. You can surf the Web over a Wi-Fi or 3G connection using your handset that is a phone (with multi-touch interface), an internet device and an iPod in one. The iPhone brings us all kinds of apps, if you believe Apple’s advertising (“From games to business to health and fitness, there’s an app for that.”), there is an application for almost everything on the iPhone.

NTT DoCoMo has unveiled plans to launch its next-generation 4G mobile phone network next year. With this, they will be one of the world’s first companies to deploy the Long Term Evolution (LTE) standard on a large scale. LTE has been developed to boost download speeds for mobile devices and open the way for Japanese handsets to become compatible with the rest of the world. This year, DoCoMo launched a service called BeeTV, which offers videos tailored to the small screens of the mobile phones. DoCoMo hopes that movies will prompt customers to sign up for unlimited data packages, which can be delivered economically via LTE.

Shouldn’t these ongoing and forthcoming activities and a zillion other activities of both big players and small startups be dubbed future internet? They evidently shape the internet. We are witnessing how networks, infrastructures, applications, services, content and devices converge. They serve us and surprise us. IT services are procured and delivered in new ways for organizations of all sizes, improving end users’ ability to deliver services in a faster, easier and more economic manner.

To make it all happen, these companies are investing huge amounts of money in R&D. In 2008, Apple spent 1.1 billion USD (751.8 million Euros), 3.4% of its fiscal revenue on R&D. Microsoft´s R&D spending hit a record high in 2008, approximately 8.1 billion USD (5535.6 million Euros). Google investments were around 2.94 billion USD (2009.2 million Euros) last fiscal year. These investments serve strongly focused business strategies.

An interesting exercise would be to compare these figures with European ICT research and development funding. There are roughly 1900 million Euros dedicated under the umbrella of FP7 ICT to finance R&D projects in 2009 and 2010 altogether. Within this framework programme, the ‘future internet’ themes belong to Challenge 1 where projects dispose of a funding of 557 million Euros approximately during the abovementioned 2 years. Depending on the size of the organizations involved in the winner R&D projects, this funding may be filled up with additional private investment of 25-50%.