Interesting People mailing list archives
IP: HALLOW DREAMS
From: Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>
Date: Tue, 28 Nov 1995 09:45:22 +0900
Sorry for the bad formatting, no time to fix djf (Sent with permission) SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS Copyright 1995, San Jose Mercury News DATE: Sunday, November 12, 1995 PAGE: 1D EDITION: MORNING FINAL SECTION: BUSINESS SOURCE: Story by Lee Gomes MEMO: ANALYSIS HOLLOW DREAMS THE INDUSTRY IS ABUZZ WITH TALK OF A LEAN, MEAN 'HOLLOW' PC. BUT DOES THE TALK REFLECT STRATEGIC THINKING...OR WISHFUL THINKING? AFTER 15 years of bulking up, technologically speaking, are personal computers about to go on a diet? And not just lose a few pounds, but slim down so much that they become altogether ""hollow?'' That's the premise of a new and currently fashionable school of thought in the computer industry, one that's adhered to by some of the industry's biggest names and by a legion of Wall Street investors who, whether they realize it or not, now have billions of dollars riding on the idea that the future of technology is a hollow one. This view, which has not persuaded everybody, holds that a new chapter has begun in the PC saga, one in which the devices will lose their dependence on sinewy microprocessors like Intel's Pentium and large operating systems like Microsoft's Windows. In their place will be ""network computers'' costing $500 or so, that will connect to a new, improved Internet - which itself will grow to become the source of our computer power and our computer programs. In its purest form, this vision holds that applications such as word processors won't reside on a local hard drive - which, in fact, we may not even have at all. Instead, programs will be stored on some distant server that we'll link to with a high-speed connection. PCs, the argument goes, will become ""hollowed out,'' serving not as the foundation for all computing, but instead as a simple entry point to an on- line world stuffed with all the resources anyone could want. Many people consider this ""hollow talk'' to be but wishful thinking by companies shut out of, and increasingly threatened by, the dominant ""Wintel'' computer architecture. And indeed, the notion of hollow computing seems to be in conflict with most of the trends in technology during the last few decades - like the one toward having individuals, rather than remote machines, control their own computing destiny. Others point out that the recent history of personal computers is full of still-unfulfilled predictions of the imminent collapse of Intel and Microsoft - such as the notion that Unix workstations would one day replace PCs, or that desktop computers would be eclipsed by handheld ""personal digital assistants'' or super-smart ""high definition'' televisions. Still, the talk abounds. For example, Oracle Corp. President Larry Ellison, says PCs have gotten too complex and hard to use and are overdue for a replacement. Ellison promises a $500 ""network computer'' next year. Another big booster is Sun Microsystems Inc., developer of ""Java,'' a new version of the C++ computer language that Sun has reworked for use on the World Wide Web, allowing a browser program to execute small programs known as Java ""applets.'' While Java is one possible approach to livening up Web pages - for example, by animating a company's logo - Sun is making much bolder claims for it. Java, says Sun, could become nothing less than the future of computing; the lingua franca that programmers everywhere will use for nearly all computer applications, all of which will run on-line. In recent months, various industry analysts have warmed to the hollow idea, giving talks with titles like, ""Why Microsoft and Intel don't matter any more,'' or calling PCs the ""horse and buggy of the Information Age.'' The futurist George Gilder, in a widely read essay this fall, called Marc Andreessen of Netscape Communications Corp. ""the new Bill Gates'' and predicted that soon no longer will the programs in your machine determine the functions you can perform. The computer becomes a peripheral to the Internet. On Wall Street, the theory of the hollow PC provides the theoretical foundation, such as it is, for the current investor mania for anything and everything connected with the Internet. Shares in Netscape, for example, closed at $97.50 Friday. A common investor refrain is that Netscape is ""the Microsoft of the on-line world,'' a view that borrows many of the assumptions of the hollow computer camp. On-line overwhelms Those assumptions begin with several undisputed observations: that communications-related tasks, as opposed to those involving solitary computing, have become an increasingly important component of what PCs do; and that PC users are spending more and more time on-line. The disagreement involves what happens next. *Will those communications functions eventually become the entire computer, as those in the hollow camp contend? Or will they simply be another in the PC's increasingly impressive repertoire of skills, a repertoire that includes activities as diverse as sending faxes and playing CD-ROMs? * Will a Web browser become the operating system? Or instead, will the operating system simply expand, as it has in the past, but this time to swallow browser functions as well? * Will a minimalist computer really be easy to use? After all, computing's user-friendly features, such as graphical interfaces, require enormous amounts of hardware and software, albeit carefully hidden from users. It should also be noted that history is not on the side of those advocating hollow computers. For one thing, special purpose computing devices have always lost out to general purpose machines like PCs, - especially considering the constantly declining prices of PCs. Given a choice, who would pick one machine that does less than another one? For example, five years ago, people were making many of the same predictions for X terminals, a kind of slimmed down but network-aware workstation, that they are today for network computers. But Eileen O'Brien of International Data Corp., the research group, said X terminals never became anything more than a niche product, largely because they couldn't match PCs. And in recent years in the consumer marketplace, numerous companies have brought out what were essentially souped-up game machines with limited PC-like functions, such as the ability to play some CD games. Despite elaborate marketing campaigns, these products all fizzled - even while millions of consumers continued buying PCs three or four times as expensive. Another problem for hollow computers is that they seem to go against one of the cardinal tenets of computing: that no matter how much microprocessor power or memory or storage space you have, it is never enough. Every year or so, some new PC technology comes along that causes the machines to swell up. A few years ago, it was CD-ROM-based multimedia; next year, it is likely to be the simultaneous moves to 3-D computing and full- screen video - both of which depend on ever-more powerful hardware and software. Since those sorts of capabilities would be on the wish list of even an entry-level PC buyer, it is unclear who would be attracted to a hollow computer. Especially since the mass market economics of the PC industry allow companies to continue to add features to machines without markedly increasing their cost. Finally, a computer that depends on a network like the Internet must cope with the fact that the Internet has some major problems of its own. For all its riches, the system is also quirky and obtuse; it is often slow, something likely to get worse as usage increases; and has far more breaking points that can cause things to shut down than any individual PC ever will. But Oracle is undaunted. While it is careful to note that it won't actually be selling the machines itself, the company says it will have a network computer to demonstrate by early next year, and that other companies will be selling them by year's end. For $500 or even less, the company says, you could get a machine with a RISC processor, 4 megabytes of memory, a keyboard and some sort of network interface, such as a Ethernet connection or a built-in modem. But why, precisely, would anyone want to buy one? Especially when they could get a more powerful, if used, PC for the same price? Because, said Andy Laursen, Oracle's vice president of network computing, of their utter simplicity. ""The simplest PC is still beyond the skills of most of the population,'' he said. ""A network computer will be as easy to use as the telephone.'' ""People will still buy PCs, but at some point, the growth rate for network computers will surpass the growth rate for PCs. People might have one PC, but they will have several network computers,'' Laursen said. The machines will perform specialty functions, he said. One might be a set- top box for a TV set; another will be dedicated to Web browsing. Good for anything? But while the sort of machine that Oracle is describing may be easy to use, can it be used for anything that's really useful? For starters, the most rudimentary ""network computer'' will use a home television set as a monitor, meaning a low resolution display that can't do justice to most Web pages. Another major issue is whether a stripped-down machine can keep up the rapidly changing ways in which people actually are using the Internet. In fact, it's likely that rather than making computers slimmer, the growth of the on-line world will be yet another reason that PCs will become even more corpulent. At the start of the year, for example, Web pages were relatively simple collections of text and pictures. But they are slowly adding sound, video, telephony - and now with Java, full-blown computer programs of their own. Those all place added demands on the computer that's doing the Web surfing. Laursen maintains that without the burden of having to run a large operating system, a 4 megabyte machine can handle everything. But that notion is disputed even within the ""hollow PC'' camp itself. For example, Netscape founder James Clark has professed skepticism about at least the hardware portion of the hollow computer idea, saying that Netscape's Navigator browser program needs all of the performance ""oomph'' that today's PCs can muster. As evidence, consider the fact that running Java on the Wintel version of Netscape currently requires the more powerful Windows 95 operating system - although the company promises a version for Windows 3.1 as well. $500 barrier Another challenge to the hollow computer involves the economic assumption behind it: that to reach mass market status, a product can't cost much more than $500. That rule applies to TVs and VCRs; it doesn't, though, apply to some other well-known product categories. ""If you believed that, then it would be true that only 30 percent of homes would have cars,'' said Martin Reynolds, a Dataquest analyst. ""The problem with a $500 computer is that it just doesn't do enough. The people who understand what a PC does will turn their nose up at them. And anyone who knows what a PC can do, and who wants one, will find a way to buy one.'' Reynolds, a student of PC component expenses, said there is very little cost to be squeezed out of a typical Wintel PC, meaning that a computer couldn't get much cheaper without huge sacrifices being made. An entry-level system with a $2,000 retail price tag might have cost its manufacturer $1,700 or so to make. Of that, the $350 spent for a microprocessor and the $240 for 8 megabytes of RAM memory are the only two expenses that are ""unnaturally'' high, owing to the prices charged by both Intel and the world's RAM memory ""cartel.'' Even with more vigorous CPU competition for Intel, Reynolds said, the price of a microprocessor would come down by only about 20 percent. Reynolds said the other costs - $300 for a monitor; $200 for a full- function motherboard; $250 for storage; $300 for various packaging items all were produced in low-profit commodity businesses, meaning there was no ""fat'' that could be cut. And while Microsoft evokes a special enmity in many people, it adds only $50 or so to a unit's cost - the discounted price that computer companies pay to license Windows. The $500 machine is just the hardware half of the hollow PC idea; the other half involves a software system that can liberate users from the PCs and make them instead full-fledged citizens of the Net. This is the role Sun has in mind for Java, as demonstrated by the way it is trumpeting the language as something much more than a way to add gimmicks to World Wide Web pages. But just as with Oracle's stripped-down hardware, it is unclear how pleasant it would be to live in a Java-only world, if a visit to Sun's Java home page is any indication. Even without considering the time involved to transmit them over the network, Sun's sample programs are strikingly slow - at least by comparison to those written specifically to run on a PC. That's one reason Microsoft says claims about Java's capabilities as a general-purpose software solution are wildly exaggerated. Those programs are all first passes at using the software, meaning they will improve with time. In addition, Sun's Eric Schmidt said Java will get a big boost next year with the availability of a Java ""compiler,'' which will take a Java program and translate it to run on a specific machine. ""There is a clear space where Java will be the best choice - in network- centric, multiplatform computing. There doesn't seem to be any disagreement about that,'' he said. ""But we believe the language can go well beyond that. For example, we think that a majority of programs for e-mail or for browsing - all the sorts of things that knowledge workers do - will be written in Java. Whether it does or not is a matter of your view of the future.'' Actually, one company does dispute the statement that Java is the best choice for network computing: Microsoft, which has its own versions of ""on- line languages'' waiting in the wings. -------
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