We underline the co-evolutionary progress from collaborative automation to the extended and integrated global enterprise through which Industrial Informatics evolved mirroring the paradigm shifts in networking and communications under five years of tumultuous technological transformations. Latest trends that support the dynamic interplay of distributed intelligent technologies and services in today's complex and converging interdependent ecosystem of a networked world are revealed. Our efforts in setting up a solid foundation for prototyping and experimentation with the tomorrow's industrial ecosystems in preparation to meet the upcoming challenges inherent in these future developments, are detailed.