When Info first stirs, it is in the primeval ooze of mainframe assembler programs, small pools of computing capability existing in widely separated locations. Data, algorithms and operating system instructions all coexist, packed into tiny shared memory spaces on computers that are always short of processor cycles.

As computer hardware and software become commercialized, data and process are seperated. Info now processes records in response to input files. The number of computers expands significantly. A basic program structure evolves, suited to batch file processing.

Technology advances, Info evolves in response. Now the equivalent of a multi-cellular creature, Info has distinct components specialized to handle specific tasks. Still running in a mainframe computer environment, multiple programs interoperate to process large volumes of business records. Data takes on its own existence with the emergence of the first database management systems.

Online processing brings Info into the real-time world. Like a small dog, Info can interact with people, responding to simple commands, flashing screens to get attention, and running to retrieve the next transaction. Online networks allow Info to interact in a larger world, sharing information between multiple computers.

With the advent of personal computing, Info is distributed around the world. Spreadsheets, word processing, and graphics programs enrich the information processing ecosystems. Graphical User Interfaces allow true human interaction with computers on a large scale.

As personal computers, servers, and mainframes are networked together, a new ecosystem emerges - the Internet. Info takes on a larger role. Search engines collect multi-media information from across the internet, in advance of any specific request. Grid computing performs distributed calculations across a myriad of individual machines, using computing cycles scavenged unobtrusively. Self-replicating programs change their code as they spread. No longer bound in time and space to a single location, or a single purpose, Info is truly entering a new stage of evolution.

People now expect an application to be able to communicate across the entire computing world, to be unlimited in it's capacity for information retrieval and storage, and to be able to interact seamlessly with other applications to respond to information requests. From an isolated binary world, where information and calculations existed within the scope of a single program, and required expert human intervention to be comprehensible, Info, our application avatar, has evolved to become an actor in a multi-media globally distributed world, where he interacts with people and other applications in a complex dance of information and services.