Smart Services Overview
The past five years have seen an explosion in the need for availability of high-speed telecommunications services. The growth of the Internet has created a range of new applications broadly known as electronic commerce, which are about to revolutionize business processes. These multimedia applications require high speed networks for fast downloads. The price performance of high-speed networks is relatively high based on today’s model for network services availability from service providers. This model is based on silo connectivity of users back to a central location with no method for bandwidth sharing even though technology is available to facilitate this approach.
The need for shared multimedia information technology and telecommunication services are emerging in the business and residential media as one of the most effective means to provide price performance of services and facilitate real time information sharing.
User interest and development activities have intensified in the recent years. This is primarily due to increased awareness of the potential applications that may be supported by integration of technology, including voice, data, image and video signals. Such activities have created the need for a new layer of innovative technologies and associated systems integration skills in order to realize the benefits of these emerging markets.
Global competition and focusing on core business are key factors, which are determining corporate strategies for success in the nineties. Businesses are being forced to examine ways of operating more efficiently, typically doing more, but with fewer resources. As a result, rapidly growing number of people are working in their home full-or part-time.
Employers are changing their work rules by offering workers greater flexibility in working conditioned via telecommuting, and by establishing virtual offices with only a few core employees located at the headquarter sites and others are telecommuting from home. This program is critical to increase productivity, make employees happy, saving increasingly scarce space and attracting new highly qualified professionals.