Remember the information superhighway? In 1994, it was called, “The greatest social revolution since the automobile.” Did that happen?

I know it was part of the Clinton/Gore promises. There were several big players in the worlds of entertainment and education helping to sell the vision, too. They all talked about how this glorious network of transparent tubes would transform our very lives. It would help teachers educate children. It would facilitate research collaboration at universities. It would instantly connect the good doctor to a patient’s medical history at the tap of the doc’s fingertips. And, of course, the mother of all benefits: our 100 TV channels would be increased to 500 to ensure that our children would never need to study math, to learn science or to read a classic. The “super” part of the highway was all about you, the consumer, enjoying a futuristic version of health, productivity and lifestyle, all thanks to a steady steam of content arriving instantly, easily and in real-time right to your front door. Did that happen? I’m embarrassed to say, I don’t know.

As we fast forward to today, the Obama administration promises sound eerily similar to the 1994 hype: a modern communications infrastructure deploying next generation broadband communications. (I guess Google Planet is involved too, since Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt is ever visible at Obama’s recent news conferences. Rumor has it he’s looking to become the U.S.’s first Chief Technology Officer.)

Much like Clinton/Gore, the Obama/Biden team has stated a goal of building a bigger Internet. By this measure, it would seem our information superhighway still needs some additional lanes, on-ramps and increased speed zones. On the other hand, I enjoy cable channel 497 where I can watch grocery shopping. So, I really don’t know if we have an information superhighway yet or not. Feel free to write to me if you think we have completed the highway – or where you think we are missing some bridges.

Here is what I do know. There is an expanding mobile information highway and it is super for business. But it’s not the miles of wires and tubes we imagined in the ‘90s.  It’s an invisible network of data that uses the Internet as the central server. Smart businesses are using it right now. 

Whether we need to increase the width of the highway or not, businesses are transforming the Internet into their own corporate network. The vehicles on this mobile information highway are hundreds of millions of mobile devices being driven by company employees with all that proprietary corporate data as passengers. In 2007 alone, approximately 120 million mobile devices were shipped. Laptops surpassed desktops for shipments. The cost of gas (that is, of connectivity and wireless access) has dropped, while the advent of cloud computing with software as a service applications (SaaS) has made the trip on the mobile highway faster, cheaper and requiring fewer stops along the way. It’s the EZPass of data.

Something else has also happened. The era of the Local Area Network (LAN) as mission control for the enterprise has ended. The days of the LAN being the core digital workspace for an employee are over.  The days of the data center being the place that exclusively holds a company’s important data is no longer. The days of your personal workstation being a computer bolted to your company office floor is history, too.

Friends, while conversations continue about building more pipes and more content, the mobile infrastructure community comprised of hardware, software and service providers is ever expanding and open for business. The focus has shifted from big superhighways, to fast and nimble alleyways and shortcuts. Why? Because companies know two things: alleys and side streets are where their data is parked every night. Corporate data is parked in the laptops and mobile devices in a place called Home or Latte Lane. Companies want the Internet to be more predictable, secure and contextual—not just faster. They want the devices and the users to have seat belts and speed limits, depending on what data is in the car. They want to choose whether to pay the toll or save the money and take the back route. Second, the local streets are where customers, vendors and competitors are making their play. Corporations want their employees on the side streets and avenues because that is where customers make their purchases.   

The mobile information highway is growing ever bigger and arriving at more local destinations with critical passengers we call corporate data.