According to the vision of this project the relationship between humans, computers and electronic devices has evolved rapidly, defining technology eras with shifts in the related information technology (IT) business leadership. From the one-to-many relationship ? computer versus human users ? in the enterprise during the mainframe era in the 1960s, computers moved to the family environment with the personal computer (PC) in the 1980s. With the mobile phone, they established a personal one-to-one relationship ten years later.

The emergence of Ambient Intelligence is consequence of moving to a one-to-many relationship with phone complements, WiFi routers, gaming consoles, MP3 players, set-top boxes (STBs), TVs and infrastructures with impressive computing and storage capabilities. This environment is an enabler for a new concept of global and transversal platform that will exploit the real potential of the network affecting all business areas.

In this convergence process, the Ambient Intelligence platform will be used as a cross-industry component-oriented platform that enable the creation of intelligent service solutions in an ambient intelligent environment. The consortium shares the vision of this platform emerging from a community process. The software infrastructure is progressively embedding users in a virtual world. In the long term, everyone will contribute as individual and community playing service-provider and consumer roles. This interaction will lead to the evolution of the platform.

The goal of the European <a class=""external text"" href=""http://www.itea2.org/"" rel=""nofollow"" title=""http://www.itea2.org/"">ITEA<a class=""external text"" href=""http://www.itea2.org/"" rel=""nofollow"" title=""http://www.itea2.org/""> research project OSAmI (Open Source Ambient Intelligence) is to create a joint component- and service-oriented platform that is based on a common architecture and principles. This platform will be used to create ambient intelligence applications that can be re-used by many developers to create industry-related solutions.

The initiative consists of a number of networked national sub-projects that use the same OSAmI architecture and principles to build solutions for different industry segments that still can be used in a networked cross-industry environment.