The Web at Graduation and Beyond

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiv

   PDF

2. The Web from Freshman to Senior in 20+ Years (that is, A Short History of the Web)

   • Gottfried Vossen, Frank Schönthaler, Stuart Dillon

   Pages 1-52

3. Digital (Information) Technologies

   • Gottfried Vossen, Frank Schönthaler, Stuart Dillon

   Pages 53-103

4. IT and the Consumer

   • Gottfried Vossen, Frank Schönthaler, Stuart Dillon

   Pages 105-155

5. IT and the Enterprise

   • Gottfried Vossen, Frank Schönthaler, Stuart Dillon

   Pages 157-221

6. Digitization and Disruptive Innovation

   • Gottfried Vossen, Frank Schönthaler, Stuart Dillon

   Pages 223-247

7. The Road Ahead: Living in a Digital World

   • Gottfried Vossen, Frank Schönthaler, Stuart Dillon

   Pages 249-273

8. Back Matter

   Pages 275-292

   PDF

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.”

• World Wide Web
• Electronic commerce
• Web search engines
• Cloud Computing
• Social networks
• Crowdsourcing
• Collaborative systems
• Disruptive Innovation
• Digitization

“I am impressed by how the authors are able to tackle such a wide swath of technology development for the novice manager or executive. They struck a good balance between information provided and links to further reading and appropriate examples. … the authors cover appropriate topics in enough depth to make this a useful work for the nontechnology manager or executive to get caught up with the complex and wide-ranging array … . I recommend it.”( Pascal V. Calarco, Computing Reviews, March, 2018)​

• Dep. Information Systems, Universität Münster Dep. Information Systems, Münster, Germany

  Gottfried Vossen

• PROMATIS software GmbH, Ettlingen, Germany

  Frank Schönthaler

• Department of Management Systems, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand

  Stuart Dillon

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.

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