IP: a tin can and a wire [see note]

[David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

**** Why is it the Economist "almost" gets it right so
often yet almost always misses the real point. They did it
yet again djf ***




Date: Mon, 16 Oct 1995 00:45:07 +0100
To: www-buyinfo () allegra att com
From: anon-remailer () utopia hacktic nl (Anonymous)


 The Economist, October 14, 1995, pp. 75-76.




   Will your next computer be a tin can and a wire?


      This week's fall in technology stocks was bad enough.
      But what if the Internet destroyed the personal-computer
      industry ...?




   For nearly a decade, Sun Microsystems, a Californian
   computer maker, has mystified punters with its cryptic
   slogan: "The Network is the Computer." Surely computers are
   the boxes that do all the work, and the network is just the
   wires that connect them? Sun's riposte: just wait. Now a
   growing camp within the computer industry thinks the wait
   is nearly over, for two reasons. The first is the
   inexorable rise of the Internet, the open computer network
   already connecting some 30m-40m users worldwide; the second
   is the emergence of Java, a new kind of program that runs
   over it.


   As well as Sun, firms such as Oracle, a software giant, and
   Netscape, the darling of the booming Internet-software
   industry, are spending tens of millions of dollars on a bet
   that the Internet can do a lot more than pass around e-mail
   and transmit data. Along with computer visionaries such as
   George Gilder, they think it can also do much of the work
   of today's computers, holding not just information but
   software, from word processors and spreadsheets to games
   and entertainment programs. Most radically, they go on to
   argue that this could end the reign of the personal
   computer. If small, efficient programs can arrive speedily
   from the Internet, who needs a $2,000 PC on their desk?
   Perhaps a glorified terminal -- just a screen and a
   processor -- would work just as well, at a quarter of the
   price.


   This is a tempting idea. PCs are not just expensive, they
   are also caught in a vicious circle. Each time Intel, a
   chip maker, launches a faster processor, Microsoft, a
   program writer, releases fancier software that sucks up
   most of the new power. Diligent users trade up every other
   year, but their word processor probably runs more slowly
   than it did in 1985 (although it does a lot more). They
   have little choice: Microsoft and Intel may be benevolent
   dictators, but they are still dictators.


   It is this stranglehold that Sun and others believe they
   can break. If they are right, it would reshape the whole
   computer industry, returning it to its early days of
   buccaneering competition. Neither Intel nor Microsoft has
   any special advantage on the Internet (other than having
   more money than anyone else to throw at it). That has not
   hurt them much so far because, in its slow and stumbling
   infancy, the Internet is still a mere adjunct to the PC.
   But some, at least, of the elements required to turn it
   into a rival are starting to fall into place.


   The first is the all-important fast connection. Many
   businesses now have fast Internet connections over leased
   lines; in a few years, many homes could get the same
   service through upgraded cable-TV networks and digital
   satellites. Today, many home users struggle with an
   Internet connection at 14,400 bits per second. Tomorrow's
   networks will offer 10m bits or more.


   But even using such big pipes, today's Internet is still a
   static medium, hardly more interactive than a telephone.
   Most of the sites on its multimedia World Wide Web simply
   send pictures and text in response to requests. What it
   lacks is software: working, useful on-line tools that users
   can control -- just the sort of thing that spurred the PC'S
   success in the first place.


   That is where the second new element comes in. Earlier this
   year, Sun launched Java, a new programming language (the
   code in which software is written). Unlike other computer
   tongues, it is designed especially to run on a network, by
   using "applets" (small programs designed for specific
   jobs). Sun reckons that programs written in Java could let
   users do everything (and more) they do on their PC, all
   from the network. Already there are nearly 400 Java
   applications, including spreadsheets, wordprocessors and
   games.


   Software on demand


   Java teasingly suggests the holy grail of computing:
   programs that do exactly what you want, when you want it --
   but no more. Today's multimegabyte PC-software packages
   include every power-hungry feature their designers can
   think of, on the off-chance that a user might occasionally
   want a few of them. No wonder Oracle's chief executive,
   Larry Ellison, calls the PC "a ridiculously over-engineered
   device -- a mainframe on the desktop".


   Sun's vision for Java is that its compact applets, many
   taking up less than 100,000 bytes, will do a single job
   well. If a user wants another feature -- say,
   spell-checking on a word-processor, or a graphic chart --
   he simply clicks to fetch another applet, which arrives in
   a few seconds. Java thus offers the user the tempting
   prospect of a virtually infinite supply of just-in-time
   software -- passing the burden of storing it to the
   network.


   Today the Internet's content is like that of a TV: a mostly
   static information and entertainment store. Users move
   around it with a "Web browser" programme. Add Java (or its
   equivalent: Microsoft and others are working on similar
   languages) and such browsers become workshops too. Both
   Netscape and Sun have piloted versions of their browsers
   with Java "interpreters" built-in. Oracle is developing a
   similar product.


   Mr Gilder thinks such efforts will shake the computer
   industry: "To the extent that Java or a similar language
   prevails, software becomes truly open for the first time."
   Forget Windows 95; some people are starting to wonder if
   they need Microsoft at all.


   They may soon get their chance to find out. Sometime next
   year, predict both Mr Ellison and Sun's chief executive,
   Scott McNealy, companies will release machines (dubbed
   "Internet appliances" or "network computers") that will do
   nothing more than run Internet software and perhaps a
   simple word processor. Sans Microsoft, Intel, hard drive
   and almost everything else, and equipped with a network
   connection and perhaps one megabyte of memory (compared
   with eight or more on a typical PC), such Internet
   computers will probably sell for less than $500, aimed
   initially at the vast majority of homes that do not yet
   have a PC.


   Some who might make such devices are Oracle (perhaps
   working with Korean electronics giants such as Samsung or
   the LG Group), and game-machine companies such as Sega or
   Philips (whose CD-i game box can already access the
   Internet). Apple is developing its own stripped-down
   computers and Toshiba is working with Sun on a mobile
   Internet machine.


   A steaming cup of reality


   No wonder Sun's share price has tripled in the past 16
   months. Specialised network computers may indeed catch on:
   after all, dedicated game machines still outsell PCs in
   America, even though the bigger computers can run many of
   the same games. But those who predict that such machines
   will kill the PC are ignoring computing history, and
   glitch-prone real life.


   The PC beat the mainframe because users wanted the whole
   computer on their desktop, not in the basement. That makes
   Java terminals look like a step backwards: by putting
   program storage far away down a shared network, it makes it
   vulnerable to delays, congestion, and all the
   unpredictability of anything out of a user's control.
   "Anything that happens in a box on your desk is always
   going to be faster than something that happens down a
   wire," says Craig Mundie, head of Microsoft's
   consumer-systems division. As network capacity increases,
   user demand is sure to increase just as fast, reinventing
   the vicious power-sapping circle of the PC -- every growth
   in "bandwidth" consumed by more ambitious multimedia data
   and programs.


   Moreover, many homes will not get fat data pipes for years,
   if ever. Without them Java and the Internet in general are
   reduced to simple communications, lightweight jobs, and a
   few pictures. Intel's chief executive, Andy Grove, thinks
   that makes his company safe: he calls the notion of high-
   bandwidth communications reaching every home "a fantasy".
   Even without network delays, Java programs will by nature
   tend to run more slowly than traditional software because
   they must, for security reasons, be "interpreted"
   line-by-line by software in the terminal.


   Finally, there is the question of where all these splendid
   Java applications will come from. Mr McNealy thinks that
   "three computer-science students from Berkeley hacking code
   late at night" will create a powerful word-processor, which
   they will "give away for free because they want fame first,
   knowing that will lead to fortune." Perhaps, but perfectly
   good word processors are already free for the taking all
   over the Internet, and yet people still pay more than $100
   for the features and standards of Microsoft's Word. "It's
   not likely that someone is going to build the functionality
   of Word one component at a time," says Mr Mundie.


   If dedicated network computers cannot do what people want
   their PC to do today, and if they are slower in what they
   can do, the PC is safe. Being cheap is not enough: although
   you can buy a computer for only $900 today, you probably
   won't. When it comes to computing, performance is
   everything. That does not mean that there is no market for
   millions of Internet appliances, only that it is not the PC
   market. Such machines could well be the TV to today's PC,
   bringing information and entertainment into the home,
   rather than bumping the PC from the working desktop. This
   could be a huge market -- and one that Microsoft and Intel
   could indeed miss out on -- but it is an addition, not a
   replacement.


   [End]


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