The Network is the PlatformAbstract：The network is the most cost-effective platform companies can use to integrate complex interactions for increased value and growthMost chief executive officers (CEOs) today are concerned about growth - and building their companies' capacity to grow, according to Cisco CEO John Chambers. "It doesn't matter where we are in the world," says Chambers. "Wherever I go, the first thing CEOs talk about is growth.""The second thing they want to discuss is how to build in the capability to grow, to use information technology (IT) to help enable - and perhaps even change - their business strategy, and how to do that with flexibility and agility," he adds.Today, business leaders are realizing that, by increasing the value of each transaction rather than simply trying to increase the number of transactions, they can enjoy a greater growth trajectory and better return on investment. By encouraging employees, partners and vendors to work more creatively and providing them with the IT tools to be more effective in their roles, companies are successfully transforming simple transactions into much more valuable interactions."In the next decade or two, interactions will bring a whole new level of innovation to us -- the ability to drive productivity at results that are five, ten maybe twelve times greater than what we have seen in the past. And one of the technologies that helps them increase the value of their transactions - and to move from transactions to interactions - is the network," Chambers explains.The Interactions NetThis 'Interactions Net' - an evolution of the way people communicate - signals that the technology sector's center of gravity is shifting to a standards-based platform: the Internet Protocol (IP) network. In this context, a platform has three basic attributes: it is based on open standards or interfaces; it is extensible and customizable, providing new market development possibilities; and it is pervasive. When these characteristics align, a huge new window of opportunity opens.As this new phase of interactions-centric development unfolds, the ubiquity and extensibility of IP is being combined with new levels of intelligence and capability to create the right network to serve as the basis for real-time business interactions. And the applications of the future are increasingly empowered by this network platform."The network is no longer just infrastructure, not just bandwidth," Chambers observes. "Instead, it is emerging as a secure platform for delivering the customized experience that 21st century consumers expect - whether that means delivering new services as a carrier, boosting productivity for businesses of any size or consumers looking for real-time, personalized entertainment and services." Blogs, wikis, social networks and collaborative applications all exemplify the new types of communication environment that the network enables."As the ever-more-intelligent network evolves into a platform, each of us will be able to communicate from any device and in whatever mode we choose," Chambers says. As the center of the Interactions Net, the network itself is emerging as an important IT platform - like the microprocessor, which has led innovation for the past 25 years. And the emergence of the network as a platform is changing the entire value chain of IT and placing the network squarely at the center of innovation: as many as 14 billion devices will be connected to the Internet by 2010, fueled by more and more computing tasks now being handled online, from phone calls to personalized searches to downloading entertainment.The communications transformation has many facets:Storage provides an example of this evolution. "Our storage at Cisco is used much more intelligently today than it was just a few years ago," Chambers points out. "More and more, we're using a network-based, intelligent storage model in which resources are added to and deleted from the network independent of the applications they support. Instead of allocating storage to particular processor tasks, we just put it up on the network, make it available and the network can intelligently map which resources go with which application resources." This virtualization increased storageutilization by 20 to 30 percent, dramatically increased operational efficiency and led to millions of dollars in annual savings.The Communications Company of the FutureCisco is leading the transition to a network-centric technology environment. By combining its core strength (IP) with intelligence, the company is creating a powerful communications platform that will serve as the basis for the convergence of data, voice, video and mobile communications systems in a secure, integrated architecture. The success that Cisco has achieved in recent years has come from continuously planning three to five years ahead, thereby managing to get ahead of important market transitions. That foresight continues to be the basis of its strategy moving forward. "Historically, the transitions we've been a part of have been technological; they've been relatively orderly and predictable," Chambers notes. "Now, however, we're seeing a wider-reaching, more dramatic transition. So our ability to predict successfully where the market will go is even more critical and offers much greater potential import for the company."Recent moves outline the company's strategy for maintaining its leadership position as the Interactions Net takes shape over the next decade. For example, Cisco has named three new 'Advanced Technology' markets that extend the company's position across the service provider, consumer and business environments. (Advanced Technologies are areas with the potential to create billion-dollar revenue streams; they also expand the Cisco value proposition to customers, as each is integrated into the core of the network.) These recent announcements - Linksys One, the intent to acquire Scientific Atlanta, and Application Services - underscore the company's firm commitment to its long-term architecture strategy."We continue to predict the directions we think the market will take," says Chambers. "These Advanced Technologies are indicative of how we believe the network will become the preferred service platform of the future."Whereas in the past, investment was focused primarily around applications that were built on microprocessor-based platforms (e.g., work stations, servers, desktops, laptops) and the applications they used, C isco believes that future investment will shift to applications that rely more on the network as the platform for their delivery. Real-time interactions are the future of business. As the network becomes a platform and changes the entire IT value chain, companies that take advantage of it will bebetter positioned to facilitate - and successfully manage - those interactions for future growth and increased value.网络就是一个平台网络作为最具成本效益的公司可以整合其增值和成长之间复杂的相互作用当今大部分行政人员（行政总裁）都在关注的成长和培养自己公司的这种成长的能力-此话出自于思科公司的首席执行官约翰钱伯斯。