Beyond interoperability to digital ecosystems: regional innovation and socio- economic development led by SMEs

This paper shows the early results of new research on how the Digital Ecosystems can promote new modes of sustainable e-business practices, for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), using an open architecture for content sharing and B2B interactions in the knowledge economy, and within a framework of open standards. The current e-Business practices and technologies do not always encourage openness but instead tend to promote established models of proprietary e-business development based on centralized network and service infrastructure. Governments can promote open developments by supporting opportunities for new entry through supporting and augmenting a market environment for the productive coexistence of large and small companies in the B2B ecommerce domain.