In the information age, mankind is entering the information age from the industrial age. Economists generally believe that information will become the primary factor of production after entering the 2 1 century, and at the same time, it will constitute an important technical and material foundation of the information society. The huge structure of industrial society will disintegrate, and then centralized regulation will be carried out, and production will be dispersed to various sales markets. This is the fastest-growing and most influential trend of economic globalization at present, and under the impetus of this trend, there will be inestimable multinational enterprises. All this will depend on an extremely important factor of production-information. Therefore, people of insight, such as the ruling and opposition parties, entrepreneurs and scientists, are all pursuing an ideal information resource library. Nowadays, Information expressway has been widely used in many countries, which has laid a reliable and important technical and material foundation for forming a global information base and information exchange center, namely the global Internet.
Information request and exchange center with unlimited potential
Why is the Internet called information base and information exchange center? This is because it has two functions of information request and information exchange, and has unlimited potential. It's easy to surf the internet now. As long as you apply to the regional Internet service center for a computer, a modem and a telephone line, you can join the Internet. At present, there are 65,438+0.65,438+0.5 billion computers connected to it, about half of which are developed countries. Users can send an e-mail, a contract or a product information to any place in the world without making domestic calls, and can exchange theoretical research results on the Internet to realize technology transfer or commodity trading. As for the information obtained from the Internet, there are even more. According to statistics, many information centers, databases, public libraries and research institutes in the world have been or will be connected to the Internet. According to the statistics of the American Press Association, at the end of 2002, only developed countries provided 60,000 newspapers and photos to the world through the network management system. It is estimated that by 2004, 85% authoritative public libraries in the world will be connected to the Internet, and this proportion will reach 90% in 2005. It can be seen that it is no exaggeration to describe the Internet as a global information resource center, which will have an increasingly important impact on international politics, economy, science, education and even people's life behavior, and the results brought by this impact will be unpredictable. In terms of Internet application, one of the hottest projects at present is Intranet. According to the survey of international data service company, in 2002, 94% of British companies and Swedish companies, 88% of German companies and 85% of French companies have started to establish intranets. All famous automobile companies in the world have begun to realize online sales and services, and strive to gradually design cars according to the needs of users. As for the retail industry, it is not far behind. According to a survey conducted by the U.S. Department of Commerce, the largest 65,438+000 retail companies in the United States have established global online supermarkets, and a survey conducted by a consortium in the United States is quoted as saying that the Internet, as the best information base and information exchange center in the world, is most beneficial to commercial retail, because in the past, it was difficult for users in many countries in the world to buy brand-name goods, but they could get what they wanted through the Internet. Developed countries have the most brand-name goods, which undoubtedly has an advantage in online commerce.
Wal-Mart, the largest supermarket in the world, launched its own network access service in June 2000. Wal-Mart also said that it will provide users with monthly network access service at a monthly cost of less than 10 USD. This network access service called "Wal-Mart Access" adopts AOL's CompuServe platform. Wal-Mart and AOL became partners on 1999 and 12. Previously, Wal-Mart had planned to launch this plan, but for various reasons, it was once stranded. At present, most ISPs have adopted the policy of low fees for network access services, and Wal-Mart also indicated that it will invest huge sums of money this year, exceeding last year's $654.38 billion to $9 billion, for investment in network access services. Online information exchange is revolutionizing traditional scientific research methods. Nowadays, the Internet and computers have formed a new intimate relationship among researchers all over the world, and quickly replaced the ancient tradition of the intellectual community with new ways to engage in scientific research. At present, more than 8.5 million scientists around the world are connected to the expanding Internet. There are now more than 22,000 Internet networks related to scientific research, which criss-cross and can connect researchers sitting alone in front of computer screens with distant laboratories, supercomputers and colleagues in other continents.
American astrophysicist Larry Smal commented: "This is the most fundamental change since Gutenberg (15 German craftsman, movable type printing was not invented until the 20th century). He said, "This interconnected network challenges time and space, and it reduces distance and time to zero. It's like scientists all over the world are sitting in one room, which is undoubtedly a great impact on traditional scientific research methods. "
1993 In March, a robot from woods hole oceanographic institution explored the bottom of the Gulf of California, which showed the first sign of the power of this network. The robot carefully investigated geothermal cracks and bizarre life forms in seawater less than a mile away. The raw data obtained by it are transmitted to surface ships through mooring pipes, and then to computer networks and researchers all over the world through satellites and the Internet. Environmental scientists at new york University of Technology will open up a new field: they will use computers to mine valuable environmental data hidden in thousands of computers around the world, such as those of the Washington Environmental Protection Bureau, the Geneva World Health Organization and the Space Agency with a large number of satellite data. The purpose of scientists is to make these inaccessible documents available to scientists all over the world for analysis and use through the Internet.
Paul Ginsberg, a physicist at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, said that through this network, Argentina, Australia, China, Britain and the United States and other countries and regions can read the first draft of his physics articles published in electronic journals. According to the survey report of Frost-Sullivan Market Consulting Company, the network economy is still full of vitality despite several setbacks. This report discusses the current situation of e-commerce and investigates the use of high technology by companies and consumers around the world. It is based on a survey of thousands of managers, company presidents and consumers in 38 countries.
According to the report, about 50% enterprises in the world can exchange information and perform necessary procedures through the Internet to compete on a global scale. Companies that traditionally do business in office buildings now invest heavily in high technology. During the research of 200 1 electronic world survey, we learned that it is the traditional companies that do business in office buildings that play an important role in the e-commerce revolution. Network e-commerce accounts for only about 4.5% ~ 5.5% in the Internet economy. At present, the company hopes that the online revenue will increase by 4% ~ 7% next year, reaching $5 trillion worldwide. With the rapid popularization of the Internet, mobile communication can play its role to the maximum extent. At present, there has been a revolution in the way consumers use the Internet. More and more users are using mobile phones or laptops to surf the Internet instead of using traditional computers. It is estimated that by 2005, 70% of Internet users will become mobile phone users.
The information technology revolution will set off an information revolution in the new era, completely change the mode of economic growth and the world economic pattern, and lead the society into the era of network economy.
The informatization of society is also an information society. Informatization is a new stage of the development of human society, based on advanced technologies such as computer technology, digital technology and bioengineering technology. Informatization enables human beings to obtain and transmit all the achievements of civilization created by human beings in a faster and more convenient way; The transformation of consumption-oriented stage. Some people classify informatization as four modernizations and four natures.