Grok the Web

A Programmer's Guide to the New Software Development Paradigm

by Andrew Schulman

Chapter 11

"The Network is the Computer"

Last revised: April 12, 1997

Sun's slogan "the network is the computer" has an interesting implication: if more and more of what one does on a PC involves the web browser, if what's on the web becomes more interesting than what's on your local hard disk (and is certainly easier to find!), then what becomes of Windows? The requirements of both HTTP client and server from the underlying operating system are fairly minimal. (We saw this in the NT Workstation vs. Server episode.) So shouldn't we be evolving away from huge OSes like Windows, towards much simpler "thin" operating systems (back to the ultimate "thin" OS, MS-DOS?!) and machines? The ultimate expression of this is WebTV, where you can do web browsing and email with a TV-like remote control, and where the machine costs $400 instead of $3000. Benefits and problems to this approach, but possibly major implications for both hardware and software manufacturers. What does Web really mean for Wintel?

WebTV: see http://www.businessweek.com/1997/12/b3519146.htm; http://techweb3.web.cerf.net/wire/news/mar/0320webtv.html

Yikes! April 6 announcement that Microsoft acquiring WebTV! See http://biz.yahoo.com//finance/97/04/06/msft_2.html, http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,9434,00.html says MS will put some of Windows CE into WebTV.

http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,9469,00.html: "Microsoft is also looking ahead to the day when all TV sets are digital. That won't come for several years, considering how firmly analog sets are fixed in the world's living rooms. When it does, Microsoft could make good on its old promise of 'Windows everywhere.' ... Microsoft's buyout of WebTV gives them proven technology to display digital content on an analog screen. If and when digital TV catches on, that conversion will be obsolete." Merging computers, TV: http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,9430,00.html on WinHEC, joint MS/Intel/etc. initiative, PC-TV, etc.; also http://nytsyn.com/live/Latest_columns/099_040997_102205_15805.html on PC/TV "convergence."

Jon Udell, Byte: "You can support more users than you think". An important point that helps bring in NT server/workstation issue: just as web's requirements on client are "thin," so are web's requirements on server end. (In fact, thinner needs on server than on client??).

If WebTV in hotel rooms (http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/97/03/31/y0002_y00_4.html), just like Spectravision, then need for laptops drops?? Another way to look at "thin client": if web terminals everywhere, and everything want on web (need ACAP!!)...

http://techweb3.web.cerf.net/wire/news/mar/0406msthin.html: "Microsoft Shifts On Thin Clients": "The move is a radical shift for the software giant, which has been a staunch proponent of fat clients and memory-hogging applications. Rather than ignore the NC or develop software for a slimmed-down NetPC, the company now plans to offer client and server pieces for networked thin clients.... 'Microsoft has done a 180-degree turn,' said a developer familiar with Microsoft's plans. 'They've been saying fat, thick clients are the way to go. Now they're trying to say they'll be the thinnest of the thin.'"

Gates vs. NCs, anything that supports browser can't be thin: http://techweb3.web.cerf.net/wire/news/apr/0411blast.html; BYTE article on thin clients: http://www.byte.com/art/9704/sec6/art1.htm; also http://www.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/displayArchives.pl?97-t26-15.26.htm ("One key distinction from the network computer, Gates said, is that the Windows Terminal has no browser, the perfect example, he said, of a large application that needs updating. 'The message we get is anything that has to change every three years or so is not a thin client,' Gates said.")

Oracle NC to use Intel: http://www.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/displayStory.pl?970417.eellison.htm