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  Ireland: Internet Home
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• Rapidly advancing computing power
• Hyper change
• Opportunities for both large and small companies
• A need for closer customer-producer relationships
• A need for companies — particularly small ones — to differentiate themselves
• The rise of virtual corporations
• The need to share information, learn quickly and act quickly
• Major challenges with regard to privacy rights and copyright
• Converging industries and the blurring of traditional lines
• Lean, flexible management structures and small, focused development teams
• Children and adults who are day-long, life-long learners
• Radical changes in education
• A probable widening of the gap between ‘First’ and ‘Third’ Worlds
• The eventual emergence of new cultures and societies in cyberspace
• The need for ‘prophets,’ ‘philosophers’ and thinkers who will define the age

The report then goes on to deal with the Internet, covering such areas as:

• A brief history of the Internet since its inception in the late Sixties as a US military communications system
• An examination of the most pertinent surveys of Internet usage as well as profiles of Internet users.
• A detailed exploration of the three main sections of the Internet: Electronic Mail (email), the World Wide Web and Newsgroups.
• A look at how the commercial market is shaping up on the Internet.
• A point-by-point breakdown of how the Internet can be of use to a company, covering such areas as: communications, research and development, marketing, sales and support.
• An examination of the types of products presently best suited to Internet selling, including: computer products, books, publications, information products, travel, music, employment services.
• An examination of the new selling models emerging on the Internet which before long will have very major impact particularly — though not exclusively — on the software industry. These new models include: shareware, freeware, sampleware and pay-as-you-use
• The new forms of marketing emerging: relationship marketing, Web-based advertising, direct email.
• The new Internet-based payment systems: Digicash, Cybercash, First Virtual, Netscape Secure Servers
• Internet security.
• How governments worldwide are using the Internet to provide information, respond to citizens’ queries and in general promote the emergence of a technologically literate society.
• What is likely to happen on the Internet over the next couple of years: more rapid growth; more consolidation as the ‘big guns’ get into full gear; more women using the Internet; the emergence of intelligent agents; the necessity for websites to become multilingual as the Internet reaches out more to non-English speaking countries; the possibility that the Internet will temporarily go into gridlock because of such frantic growth and activity.
• The broader Digital Age trends: the Global Village Effect; online/CD-ROM hybrid products; the ‘one penny’ product; the movement towards more product customisation; the emergence of the 3D World; company towns and cultures; the ‘Good Hacker’ and how companies are using the Internet as part of the product development and testing process
• How the Internet and multimedia will forever change the face of education, with implications such as: the need for educational institutions and teachers to adapt; the major financing challenges posed by all this; how education will shift more and more to the home.

In many ways, Ireland is ideally situated to benefit greatly from the opportunities being offered by the Digital Age and the Internet. For example, culture will be a primary product in the new millennium and Ireland has this in abundance. This report will illustrate how Ireland has a plentiful supply of music, literature and a growing reputation for film/video production, not to mention excellent skills in computer programming. These are the ‘raw materials’ of multimedia. However, these raw materials, unless they are properly exploited and turned into finished product, will be of little real benefit, in the sense that multimedia is about the synergy of these skills.

Ireland has a Diaspora of some 70 million in every corner of the world and the Internet is an ideal technology with which to tap the huge potential market. Ireland has a positive image from a tourism point of view; the Internet will become an ideal medium for promoting tourism.

However, if Ireland is to truly prosper in the Digital Age it must become a producer of content, not simply — as has historically been the case — a producer of a skilled workforce which is exploited by multinationals locating in Ireland for that purpose.

The report will finish off with a set of recommendations for further study. It will make the following points:

• Centrally, the Irish Government urgently needs to put together a ‘Digital Age Vision’ document which will set out in clear detail where Ireland wants to go and how it intends to get there.
• An essential part of that Vision must be a policy on how to ‘wire up’ the country so that Ireland can take best advantage of Digital Age opportunities.
• Education must also be examined in detail, with comprehensive plans and strategies set in place.
• An online tourism plan needs to be initiated
• The Government must itself plan with regard to how it is going to go online.
• Serious investigation needs to be made into how Ireland can set up an overall infrastructure for a ‘Virtual Ireland’ in cyberspace, whereby Irish products and services can be promoted to the world with maximum advantage
• Strategies must be set in place by State agencies which will encourage online entrepreneurial activity
• Multimedia, whether it be online or on CD-ROM, must become a focus for State initiatives.

It is difficult to predict the window of opportunity which Ireland has, though it is hardly more than two/three years. Therefore, action needs to be taken immediately if the opportunity is not to be lost. Because, if Ireland does not actively move forward into the Digital Age, then it will be moved back as it is leapfrogged by countries — perhaps historically less-developed — who are embracing Digital Age opportunities and/or who offer equally skilled workforces for much cheaper wages.

Have no doubt about it, the Digital Age is happening whether anybody likes it or not. In the Global Village there is no sand for the prospective ostrich to bury its head.

As we enter the new millennium, the line between success and failure is digital. Ireland has all the raw materials and necessary talent to stay on the right side of that line and in the process create a new Irish renaissance.

Our Digital Age future is in our own hands.



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