Not wired to the future

摘要

This will be a big year for networking and wireless communications. 10GbE, Ethernet, VoIP, WiMAX, 3G, UWB are some of the acronyms involved. Maybe. You might think that futurology in the IT world would be a safe, even cushy number. In some ways it is: you check out what is happening today in Japan and there is your prediction for two years hence for this country. But it doesn't always work out that way because of the vagaries of fashion and because some things don't make it beyond the vivid press announcement. Whatever happened to last year's cheap paper phones, you wonder? Others don't make it because there is not enough potential profit or because they offer new, much cheaper ways of doing things which established companies want to make a nice little number out of for as long as possible. BT, ISDN and broadband spring to mind here. And anyway, it is often the case that the physical innovation is not what is being sold but the attached service: the computer printer and mobile phone markets are cases in point.