At The "Edge of the Network."

For some years now, I've been reflecting on a growing trend that Microsoft helped to popularize ten or so years ago with the phrase, "Information at your fingertips." Ever since the days of the 30-ton ENIAC, computers have been getting smaller and more portable, and people have been getting more used to having the information they want right at their fingertips, even if those fingers are away from their
"desktops."

I find it hard to read my own handwriting at the best of times, and since I've always hated recopying my address book to a new pocket calendar each year, I was an early adopter of the Sharp Wizard, way back when. Today, my trusty iPAQ does that deed, and a whole lot more (multimedia, soon wireless connectivity and GPS -- you get the idea.)

[Image - Compaq iPAQ -
http://www.compaq.com/products/handhelds/pocketpc/bridge.html]

But I'm what's known (be nice now) as an "early adopter" of technology (OK, I admit it, it's ultra-cool and fascinates me -- I am a technoholic), so I don't expect the mainstream to quickly follow all my leads (my Wizard days were, after all, over a decade ago.) But in the pocket department, it seems that my desire to cut the cord yet still have access to what I need to know, when I need to know it, is now becoming the norm. Just look at the number of Palms, Handsprings, and Pocket PC devices that we see walking down the street!

In fact, the Jan. 25 WSJ Interactive (http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2678265,00.html)
describes that the U.S. sale of pocket devices has doubled to 3.5 million PDAs, or $1 billion, last year. IDC has long held that over the next few years, the major growth in things that reach out and touch the Internet will be in "non-traditional" communicating, computing appliances. Dataquest found that last quarter, notebook shipments grew thirteen times more than those for desktop PCs (21% vs. 1.6% year-over-year - http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1006-200-4634295.html?tag=cd_pr). And the Strategis Group is forecasting that,

"...Mobile data will have a penetration rate among the US population of nearly 60 percent [172 million subscribers] by 2007, up from its current 2 percent...

The highest growth will be in packet data over cellular/PCS networks, which will comprise 67 percent of the mobile data market in 2007." (http://cyberatlas.internet.com/markets/wireless/article/0,,10094_573131,00.html)

So when I consider that the iPAQ in my pocket provides 142-times the computing power of the VAX-11/780 minicomputer that I used 23 years ago to support the work of 30 people (http://www.compaq.com/rcfoc/20001211.html#_Toc500827748), it's no surprise that our pockets are headed towards doing far more than the simple calendar and address book duties of my decade-old, unconnected, Sharp Wizard.

In fact, increasingly powerful communicating computing appliances, plus higher-speed wired and wireless networks, promise to redefine the computing experience, and how companies address these new environments. For example, the Jan. 26 News.com (http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-201-4614848-0.html) describes some elements of how Michael Capellas, Compaq's CEO, sees these changes affecting traditional "computer companies:"

"If a device can hook into the Internet, there's a good chance Compaq Computer will make a version of it."

"In the new distributed computing age, PCs won't remain the primary devices accessing servers. Instead, servers will dish out data to a wide range of machines, including PCs, handheld computers, mobile phones, pagers and Internet appliances via wired and wireless connections."

"Internet connections inside cars will become prevalent as well, he said. 'The wireless Internet will continue to make things change very rapidly. It won't be more than a couple of years before virtually every car has Internet access built in.'"

"'The world is going back to distributed computing,' he said. 'I really do believe this is the foundation of how the world will look.'"

Many fascinating new ways to compute are on the horizon, and they're beginning to trickle into our pockets and living rooms and cars -- but don't toss that PC quite yet. I suspect that for some time to come, these new devices will complement, rather than replace, the incredibly flexible PC that has made the computing revolution happen.

For example, when it comes to work, I don't see myself (normally) researching, writing, and publishing this journal from a pocket device -- at least until their input and output capabilities get much better. I want to sit down at a desk with a large monitor, a keyboard, and the myriad software amenities that make my "work environment," work.

I can also easily see a PC-like device evolving to power a home entertainment center (we already have PC-based MP3 stereo components, and similar video capabilities are increasingly becoming available). Eventually, I can see homes being equipped with a "computing furnace," sitting right next to the power distribution panel and the hot water heater, and snaking its wired or wireless tendrils throughout the house in a similar manner. We might (finally) make "home automation" a reality. And much more.

Given the rapidly changing face of computing, the things we use to interact with this world of information are evolving to offer us new ways to let us have our "information at our fingertips," just about anywhere, and anywhen. And that implies that behind these sexy end-user devices, the demand for the servers and databases and other elements that sit on the "edge of the network" to power our globally distributed computing, will continue to grow by leaps and bounds.

(Of course, this is also leading to an overabundance of "active pocket change," causing some participants at the Davos World Economic Forum to use the phrase "device creep" to describe our growing BatBelt full of electronic goodies, and to contemplate a world of "continuous partial attention," where we are never out of touch or able to fully concentrate on just one thing (from the Jan. 30 New York Times article by Thomas Friedman, http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/30/opinion/30FRIE.html , brought to our attention by reader Harley Rautmann.) We do, indeed, have to strike a personal balance.)

These are exciting times, and I can't wait to see what happens next!

This is an excerpt from the "Rapidly Changing Face of Computing, " a free weekly multimedia technology journal written by Jeffrey R. Harrow, Principal Member of Technical Staff for the Corporate Strategy group at Compaq. A more extensive version of this discussion, as well as others around the innovations and trends of contemporary computing and the technologies that drive them, are available at http://www.compaq.com/rcfoc . Jeff's opinions do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Compaq. The RCFoC is a service of, and Copyright 2000, Compaq Computer Corp."