Infrastructure is a broad area of activities, processes, technology that supports either private (consumption) as well as industrial purposes.

An example of infrastructure that links both areas is internet; Internet is needed for private purposes like chatting, e-mailing or downloading music as industrial purposes at the other side of the economic chain where companies are providing e-mail or chat software, or music in this case. Infrastructure is like a carrier that enables other processes, activities and technology.

Infrastructure is normally stable but can also change over time. New technological developments of infrastructure will enable even more new and different activities. The innovation of the video infrastructure shows this very well. Only recently we still used the video recorder with which we could record and (re-) play movies and television. Because of the mechanical construction of the recorders the rewinding of films took quite long. The functions that provided all these recorders were limited.

The new Digital Video Disk (DVD) recorders provide similar functionality, but the underlying infrastructure is different. You are no longer dependent of a mechanical recording and playback system. The new mechanism is no longer purely sequential but parallel like the drivers of a computer disk and this provides additional interactive features, we all know about. As long as you have access to a the latest DVD equipment, you are able to benefit from new features and you do no longer have to wait when rewinding your tape to the next film or to the beginning of the video in order to start recording.