The Internet is the most significant innovation of our times. Web connectivity is even surpassing the game changing introductions of electricity, cars and computers by connecting our computer with our car with electricity (and all other major systems we now deem essential). The web has made the Internet accessible to everyone with the Open Source Software movement transferring a culture of sharing into a Big Data flow of streamed communication and collaboration. The only problem, the real value of the web is under attack at the core of where its wellspring of innovation resides.
For the very first time, the world’s digital knowledge is available to everyone and almost everything (the Internet of Things). And it is this online data that has become the digital currency for those bold enough to wage (self-serving), the next digital war: control of the mobile OS. Even from miles away, this battle in Cupertino and Mountain View simply misses the point (and the value) of why people create and use digital products: real-time connection of personal meaning. The true value we see everywhere around us–and on every device imaginable–is how we users are shaping the massive explosion to buy, use and consume digital goods, such as books music, videos and news. Without the freedom for us to creatively connect this and newly discovered value, innovation is limited or locked away behind (fire)walls not to grow, but to collapse under its own weight.
In this hyper-connected world, where everyone and everything’s connected, digital innovation is creating a new global society. Everyday there seems to be new services and ecosystems that springs up to connect new sets of value, answers to unmet needs (and even unmet problems). And it is this connectivity that will define what the new Internet society will look like, either:
* Feudalism where the Internet is owned by a few, innovation is stifled* Totalitarianism with imposed rules from a few, where innovation is nonexistent* Mega-corporations taking ownership, or* Retain the benefits of a democratic Internet
Our mission is to develop, support and expand how open source software and data ownership principals in the mobile-app economy remain the bedrock for a democratic web. That means freedom of choice, commerce not by limited T&C’s, rather by buyer’s need and behavior, as well as enabling people to maintain ownership of their personal data.
Only a free Web will develop the full potential of this groundbreaking innovation. At Open-Xchange, our promise is to do everything in our power to achieve this: by providing the standards and tools that enable open ecosystems of connectivity between people and business.