In July 2011, the unthinkable will happen – the worldwide web will start
to run out of room. Plans are underway for the move to a new system,
known as IPv6, that will not only hugely increase capacity – to an
amazing 340 billion billion billion Internet Protocol (IP) addresses –
but enable a multitude of objects to communicate via the net. This
promises to be a boon to business, offering limitless opportunities for
visionary entrepreneurs and smart managers. But first, they must switch
systems and for some organisations it will be complicated. IT giant
Microsoft has pre-empted potential difficulties by buying up a swag of
old IP addresses. So how can other businesses prepare for the next brave
new Internet world?