"For an industry with such deep roots in the industrial age and truly big iron," Hewlett-Packard CEO Carleton Fiorina said during Tuesday's keynote address at Convergence 2000, "no industry has gone as far wringing itself inside and out and harnessing the value of the Internet."

Still, she added, "You're only half way into the new world," one in which "any process, application, or asset that can be digitized will be digitized and delivered over the Internet." Fiorina used the terms "revolution" and "digital renaissance" to describe the way the Internet is changing the world. The digital revolution is as significant a transformation "as any of us have ever encountered," she said, but it also is "the biggest opportunity, especially for industries like automotive -- and, by the way, I believe the automotive industry is demonstrating that you really 'get' the revolution that's under way." For example, she noted, "You know many of the old rules don't apply, such as push marketing. Pull marketing is the only game. End of discussion."

The industry also is coming to realize that physical assets have become secondary to knowledge assets: "The power of an idea, the power of invention is the new currency of this new age." In addition, she said, the industry understands, to some extent, that "in the always-on Internet economy, everything coalesces around brands" and that "the new game is product wrapped in services."

That's why industry executives now "stay awake pondering things like, 'Am I really a vehicle manufacturing company or am I a builder of motorized wireless bases, or am I the creator of mobile consumer services platforms, or am I a global brand owner and aggregator?"

In the next phase of the Internet economy, she explained, "everything will be intelligent, everything will be connected, and literally everything can be and should be considered as a platform for the delivery of services." She likened the "connected" world to an ecosystem consisting of disparate but interdependent organisms: "I believe this new age biology is the science that now applies rather than mechanics, which was the ruling science of the industrial age."

"This next wave of the Internet transformation is probably going to go faster and deeper than what we have all just lived through," Fiorina said. Using a baseball analogy to pinpoint where the global economy is in relation to the potential offered by the Internet, she said "we're in the top of the third."

In later innings, "the very structure of all of our companies is going to be transformed," said Fiorina, acknowledging that it's difficult at this early stage to know exactly how. One thing is for sure: "Old rigid relationship are all now in question." Which is not to say there will be a disintegration of structure. Rather, the next wave will entail "a reconnection of a much larger systems of players: customers, partners, brand owners, engineers, marketers, manufactures, and financiers in highly flexible, efficient networks or ecosystems."

A current manifestation of that thinking is the partnerships philosophy automotive OEMs and suppliers are adopting with respect to electronics companies, according to Fiorina -- partnerships that "create a geometric expansion of value wrapped around automobiles."