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Danyll Wills

For some people, information is completely divorced from its method of arrival.

 If I am told the price of Netscape stock has gone up, do I care how this is conveyed to me? If I do not care, perhaps I should think again.

  Computer technology has completely changed the way information moves from one person to another.

  The telegraph was considered an extraordinary revolution just over 100 years ago. Today, we want access to information almost as soon as it is created. Information travels through cables and into companies so that they are informed almost instantly.

  This has been brought about by computers and telecommunications. Where will it go from here?   Perhaps the biggest change that has happened over the past few years is that we can now have access in the home to systems that once cost companies thousands of dollars a week to set up and run.

   The Internet, of course, has had much to do with the 'new proliferation' of easy data access - so has the power of the home computer.

  The backbone of large computer networks will probably remain in the hands of companies such as Sun Microsystems, Digital, Hewlett-Packard and a few others that create sturdy Unix machines, because the size of these networks and the absolute reliability necessary will depend on such expensive units.

   In the home, and increasingly in the office, we are likely to see more of the personal computer and even the network computer (NC), or 'thin client' as it is sometimes called.

   This device is being promoted by Sun, Oracle and IBM.

  The thin client has not been warmly received by the likes of Microsoft and some of its allies, although Intel seems to be hedging its bets.

   The problem centres on how much the user needs to have in his own machine and how much effort it takes to keep everybody happy.

   Network people tend to like the NC, and PC people tend to think they will be hampered in what they do without all the trappings of a PC.

   The problem with the PC, however, is that it can cost a great deal of money to maintain. Some experts have said it could cost as much as US$12,000 a year to keep a PC going in an office.

 Two of the industry's leading figures, Larry Ellison, chief executive officer at Oracle, and Scott McNealy, CEO of Sun Microsystems, have been pushing for universal acceptance of the NC for more than a year.

   Both companies have much to gain. Oracle is the biggest vendor of networked databases in the client/server market and Sun is the inventor of Java, the language that is revolutionising the computer industry because its code will run on just about every computer in the world today.

  For both of these companies, Microsoft and Bill Gates is the enemy. Although Mr Gates has been cool about the NC, he has not been deaf to complaints about the cost of PCs.

   In fact, he has begun to 'borrow' the language of the Unix kings in talking about his own products. Microsoft over the past year or two has begun to use words like 'open systems', 'scalability', 'zero administration' and other terms normally associated with companies like Sun and Oracle.

  This would not be the first time Microsoft borrowed a few ideas from another company and both Oracle and Sun would be wise to watch what it does.

  Microsoft is a company that is able to change when it sees where it has gone wrong. This is exactly what it did with the Internet last year.

  Microsoft missed the Internet and allowed an upstart - Netscape Communications - to grab a big lead. Microsoft was able to turn itself around, however, and it did so extremely quickly.

  Its rivals should note that few companies the size of Microsoft could do something like that.



Leading firms divided in PC vs network challenge