To mark 25 years in Ireland, Microsoft did away with marquees and instead showcased digital realities.
A quarter of a century ago, the extent of Ireland’s digital economy was assembly lines of people pushing software disks into boxes or filling metal enclosures with components. The media used to joke about the millionaire factory workers at Microsoft’s early operations in Dublin.
Today the digital economy is all-encompassing, whether you are doing a Google Map search on your iPhone, downloading YouTube movie trailers in your kitchen, updating your Foursquare persona when you enter a new bar or being led by your GPS navigator in your car to a guesthouse in Dingle.
Very soon we will have smart meters in our homes telling us about our electricity and water usage and possibly selling excess energy back to the grid, which could then be used to power a home in Seville. It sounds ludicrous, but it has all been envisioned.
Read more of ‘The smart economy in action – not just a pipe dream’ at Digital 21.
By John Kennedy
Photo: A smart economy means organisations thinking outside the box. Marking 25 years of Microsoft in Ireland this week were An Taoiseach Brian Cowen TD and Microsoft Ireland general manger Paul Rellis. Pictured far left: HR Locker’s John Dennehy
www.digital21.ie – Digital 21 is a campaign to highlight the imperative of creating an action programme to secure the digital infrastructure and services upon which the success of our economy depends.
