The boom in the Internet has resulted in some rather unnatural developments in businesses. Everything has happened, and is still happening, so quickly. Until a few years ago most dotcom companies were working on developing their own business models for communication purposes and for constructing marketing strategies. Only a few could afford to develop applications serving users, and the idea of fidelity was not exactly at the top of the agenda.

This is no longer the case. Nowadays, Web portals are designed to provide their users with services so as to create the idea of a “community”, which is at the very foundations of any Internet company. This calls for flexible, efficient, integratable, durable technology to act as the strategic basic architecture for on-line interaction between users. At the same time there is a demand for firms with know-how and expertise in managing the entire design lifecycle and how it is all integrated into existing computer infrastructures.

Icona complies to this design; in just a few years it has developed into the leading Italian instant messaging service and backs up firms with organisational skills aimed at developing projects fitting in with technological and communications infrastructures already in use in companies.

Icona is one of the most striking Italian success stories in the world of those Internet services usually provided and supplied by overseas players; our clients have decreed this by letting us develop cutting-edge design projects.