Dumb and Dumber
Will Stupid Computers Save the World?
Excerpt from Strategy for Business, issue 15. - Summer 2004
Vindication is sweet. When Sun Microsystems first said, "The network is the computer", many of us listened politely, but thought they were being a little too single-minded. Networks are important, of course, but they’re not the be-all and end-all of computing, surely?
Well, here we all are hooked up to more networks than anyone could have dreamed of. And, as networks increase in capability, the devices we use to access them will do the opposite – they’ll become dumb – and then they’ll become even dumber, according to Sun.
CLEVER COMPUTERS VERSUS CLEVER NETWORKS
Why? Because having an intelligent PC isn’t clever. Leave your laptop in a cab and the data loss could cost your company millions. When your desktop PC stops working, so do you, because your applications and files are configured the way you like them locally so you can’t easily switch to another machine. Then there’s the cost. Hardware makers, striving to get a decent price for their kit, keep making it faster, cleverer, more capable, more costly. Then you spend many times that amount over the life of the equipment and all because we want cleverer and cleverer PCs.
The biggest cost of all, however, is the one you can’t easily count. What’s the damage to your organisation of having the wrong information? Of having different people working with a slightly different understanding of each situation? Of half your business using out of date numbers? Of not having everyone connected in real time, to the right data? It’s impossible to calculate, really, because it’s a cost that everyone builds in to everything they do. We’re all more or less working in the dark. So maybe a better question would be how would your enterprise change if everyone knew everything they needed to know – accurately and in absolute security?
It would, of course, be transformed. But you can’t achieve that miraculous situation with clever computers. According to Sun you can only do it with clever networks.
FREE HARDWARE
Happily, they’re all around us. In the USA suppliers to Wal-Mart are required to fix a radio tag to every pallet they deliver. Stocktaking is now done by standing in the doorway and reading the entire warehouse with a simple radio frequency device 400 million of the world’s bank cards identity cards and loyalty cards are actually Sun Java Cards – connecting each of us to a network and enabling both simple and complex transactions.
And, of course, there’s the ultimate popular network – mobile phones, each of them offering more and more capability almost every month. And thereby hangs a business model, says Sun.
The value in any network is the information, not the device that accesses it. So, in the same way that Vodafone et al 'give away' the mobile phone, so could our desktop and laptop devices eventually become commodities that network businesses provide free of charge.
HOW CLEVER – A REALLY STUPID COMPUTER
Sun is almost there with its SunRay device. In jargon, it’s an ‘ultra thin client’. In truth, it’s nothing more than a projector for centrally held information, distributed by a clever network.
The SunRay has no chips inside. It can’t calculate. It’s dumb. But it connects you to a network that is anything but. And any SunRay will do. You don’t need to have your own machine – so long as you can identify yourself to the network, you can work with any SunRay, anywhere.
If one gets damaged, throw it away, get another from the store cupboard and just plug it in. Oh yes, and if you leave your laptop in a cab, the person who steals it will find they have nothing more useful than a doorstop.
NETWORKS IN WAR AND PEACE
But how secure are these super-networks? Totally, according to Sun. With no risk of virus and precisely no way to intercept or interfere with data. The US Military agree. They have spent over $1 billion lately on Sun network computers, and the result is a completely new approach to warfare.
In the New York Times recently, retired Vice Admiral Cebrowski spoke of ‘networkcentric warfare’ – a concept he attributes to Sun Microsystems – which means hooking ships, aircraft, satellites and ground forces together to create a rich, shared picture of the battlefield in motion.
There are more peaceful advantages of secure networks and dumb terminals, too. One bank had three different systems in place, which meant that branches needed three different types of device to access them. Now, each desk has just one SunRay via which all systems can be used.
IS IT TIME TO SWITCH?
There’s no doubt that, for business, there are huge advantages in having accurate data accessible at all times in complete security. But when should you make the change?
Well, according to Sun, it’s easy to work out the right time to throw away your clever computers and switch to network computing – do it about a year before your competitors!
