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Network computing returns -- yet again
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Sept. 10, 1999 |
But "the network is the computer" always left me a little uncomfortable, too -- because, in the daily grind that constitutes office life, the network wasn't the computer. The computer was the thing that sat on your desk, stored all your stuff and tended to stay just the way you wanted it, at least as long as someone else didn't mess it up while you were out to lunch. The network was the thing that you only vaguely understood and that some support guys in the back room ultimately controlled. The computer was yours; the network was not. That little fact is one of the things that (if you'll pardon the expression) put the "personal" into personal computing. Now, a couple of different forces are trying to push the industry away from the personal-computing model and toward a more centralized approach. While Sun peddles its latest edition of the hoary network computer or
"network appliance" concept, a bevy of Web start-up companies are promoting a
new era of "Web-based computing," in which we'll do all our work -- scheduling, e-mail, even word processing -- inside browsers and store all our data across the Web itself. Scott Rosenberg's column appears once a week in Technology Sun's plan, unveiled this week, centers on a new product called the Sun Ray, a stripped-down workstation consisting of not much more than a monitor and keyboard, like the old "dumb terminals" that used to plug into mainframe computers -- plus a smart-card reader for authentication (think of logging in to a Sun Ray as something like using your bank's automated teller machine). With Sun Rays spread throughout a company's network, Sun imagines that you'll sit down at any desk anywhere and pick up your work from the server wherever you left off -- using a software package called Star Office that Sun recently acquired, and that provides tools similar to Microsoft Office. Sun's strategy is aimed at the corporate world, whereas the Web-based computing companies that are trying to get us to move more of our work and data into our browsers are targeting the mass market. But both fly a similar banner of economy, convenience and simplicity. And if either really takes off, then the network really will be the computer: Our desktops will lose their independence and become vassals of a central authority, either in the corporate IS department or at the main office of some media conglomerate that has wired your neighborhood. To be sure, independence has always come at a price. As individual users we've all had to take on more responsibility for protecting our data, learning the intricacies of our systems and dealing with crashes than many of us would probably like. No doubt there's some comfort to be had in handing all this responsibility back to a geek priesthood. But before we rush to embrace the brave new world of network-centric computing, let's think harder about what we're giving up -- and to whom.
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