The whole point of wireless is that it gets around the death hold the regional Bell operating companies have on plain old telephone service. The pen market and personal digital assistant market are problematic because you need your data where you are, but the devices you can carry with you aren’t sufficient. The ability to be less worried about where things are is going to greatly increase the value of the base PC as well as enable peripheral devices.
Predictor: Bricklin, Dan
Prediction, in context:In a 1994 article for Computer World, writer Steve Moore quotes Visicalc creators Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston in a running dialogue about technology. They say: CW [Steve Moore]: “What impact will wireless mobile computers have on the PC software market?” FRANKSTON: “I think the ability to assume connectivity is going to have a major impact. The whole point of wireless is that it gets around the death hold the regional Bell operating companies have on plain old telephone service. The pen market and personal digital assistant market are problematic because you need your data where you are, but the devices you can carry with you aren’t sufficient. The ability to be less worried about where things are is going to greatly increase the value of the base PC as well as enable peripheral devices.” BRICKLIN: “The problem that’s going to occur because of the communications thing is that we’re getting more and more on the desktop computer as it gets connected to very high bandwidth. If you start expecting the same thing on your portable while you’re traveling, then we have the problem of dealing with both of them. It hobbles our apps because we expect them to work in both locations. It can be a real problem because if people think we have high wireless bandwidth, they’re deluding themselves. What is considered low bandwidth now? If you have a 150K bit/sec. transfer rate CD-ROM, you’re obsolete and you can’t run a new game. You need at least 300K bit/sec., which is a few ISDN lines, right? We’re talking about doing that wireless? (Laughs.) If you start expecting real-time video and stereo from a database instantly while you’re interacting with someone else, there is a problem with it.” CW: “Will remote procedure call technology solve these problems?” FRANKSTON: “I think remote procedure call is one of those bad ideas that should be stomped out and squished. It’s based on the naive notion that there’s no difference between having a conversation between two people that’s very clear and whispering over a long series of people.”
Biography:Dan Bricklin was the inventor of the first big spreadsheet program, VisiCalc, in 1979. In 1995, he founded and became chief technical officer of Trellix, a company making Web tools. Trellix later invested in Pyra Labs, the biggest supplier of Blogging software, in 2001. (Pioneer/Originator.)
Date of prediction: May 1, 1994
Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure
Subtopic: Wireless Technologies
Name of publication: Computerworld
Title, headline, chapter name: The Killer APP Crew
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://web.lexis-nexis.com/universe/document?_m=840e7abc469f85913fc34b8fa17d1789&_docnum=6&wchp=dGLbVlb-lSlzV&_md5=f4c75bb64c13523481dee487d1b24d92
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Bricker, Erin E.