The digital superhighway consists of a broad hardware infrastructure - twisted pair, coaxial cable, optical fiber, satellites and cellular phones connecting everybody and every institution together. Of course different parts of this hardware will perform with different speeds and will be upgraded at different times in different parts of the country. However there is enough infrastructure in place to create the opportunity now being explored by American Online, Netscape, Microsoft and others. These companies are building the software and services that exploit the combination of infrastructure and software. Opportunities exist at all levels of this system which will revolutionize not only society but many aspects of our business enterprise.
Clearly telecommunications companies are and will vigorously compete in
the deployment of the basic infrastructure. The National Information Infrastructure
(NII), World Wide Web, Internet and 'Digital Super Highway' are all essentially
identical - each label focuses on a different aspect (hardware or services)
at different times (today or the future) but the underlying concept is the
same. The end users will benefit from the growing number of on-line services
- worldwide information where your mouse will choose from on-line sports
commentaries, endless soap operas, or the ultimate Encyclopedia Galactica
to aid homework; electronic shopping; on-line banking; continuing education
from the virtual university in your home; worldwide chat-rooms; interactive
multiplayer games etc.
Some of these services are 'here' today, others are just emerging while
some are awaiting improved technology and/or the appropriate entrepreneur
and venture capital. The Northeast Parallel Architectures Center (NPAC),
the CASE Center and many faculty in the Engineering and Computer Science
college at Syracuse University work in between the end users and the infrastructure.
We study the appropriate software and services needed to make this happen.
The software includes new language such as Java from Sun, JavaScript from
Netscape and VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language) from Silicon Graphics
and others. Java and JavaScript enable a new generation of interactive World
Wide Web pages. VRML allows a universal description of three dimensional
objects which can be exchanged over the Web. Soon you will be able to build
a VRML description of your home and the Web browser will enable a virtual
reality 'walk through'. Then appliance and furniture manufacturers should
be motivated to put the VRML description of their products on the Web which
you can grab and place in your virtual home as a preview before (electronic)
purchase. This example has natural analogies in developing catalogs and
previews for all products through clothes, cars and real estate.
We also see the revolutionary aspect of the World Wide Web in the emerging concepts of WebWindows and Intranets. Up to now, we have focused on the broad reach of the Web and this is critical in motivating the excellent software which is now being produced. This software is now or soon will be far superior to that produced for PC's, UNIX workstations or mainframes. That is one reason that Microsoft is so worried about Netscape and the Web browser market. Products like Microsoft Word and (IBM) Lotus Notes have no future. Rather a new class of software will be available with entrepreneurs developing 'Web Word', 'Web Excel' etc. These 'Web Top Productivity Tools' will be word processors, presentation packages , collaboration tools, databases, multimedia authoring and graphics but not built as now for PC, Macintosh or UNIX environments. Rather, they will be built for WebWindows - the emerging operating system of the World Wide Web which is preferable to say Windows 95 or IBM's mainframe operating system as it is universal ( it runs on all machines) and higher functionality. WebWindows will 'level the software playing field' and will have enormous impact on the computer industry as it will tend to empower new entrepreneurial small businesses and threaten the software dominance of Microsoft, Apple, Lotus, etc.
NPAC is focusing on developing expertise in and products built on this WebWindows expertise. We also are teaching students about the new technologies and not unexpectedly there is currently tremendous demand for our students and for our tutorials on these Web technologies from enterprises wanting to get into these areas. Amusingly we can bootstrap this process and use Web technologies to put all our courses and laboratory material online. Thus the Web community can use the Web itself to both collaborate, teach and learn.
Intranets have been popular recently. These correspond to building enterprise information systems using WebWindows technology. WebWindows can encompass the world (Clients talking to large Servers around the globe) or just a single machine (a PC Web browser linked to a Server on the same machine). Further we can apply these ideas flexibly to any enterprise of intermediate size and use Web technology to build general information services. These will use traditional concepts (e.g. databases) but link these to the rich WebTop environment. Note this means one should not reject Web technologies because of today's low bandwidth or insecure Internet. If I build today a WebWindows Intranet, it can have whatever bandwidth and security the enterprise network supports.
Some of the applications explored by NPAC can be accessed at our home page http://www.npac.syr.edu. These include a politics information system built around Newt Gingrich's recent visit to Maxwell; this illustrates how Web Windows systems can be built for information storage and on-line discussion of any loosely knit enterprise from political parties through special interest organizations. Medical information systems are a particular of enterprise system which is also best built using Web Windows. Using Java we can customize the 'look and feel' and access privileges so that doctors, hospital administrators, insurance companies, nurses and patients can share the same information.
We have two interesting local projects - one with the University College of Nursing with a prototype system to help K-12 school nurses; the second uses simple virtual reality technology to allow disabled persons to both navigate the Web and to transmit medical sensor data from their homes to Web servers where it can then be analyzed conveniently by the doctors.
An area of interest to NPAC is use of WebWindows in the financial industry. Here Java can be used to provide excellent PC (home, office) interfaces to real time trading data. Java will allow downloading of simple modeling packages to aid on-line trading. However today's complex financial instruments require computationally intensive Monte Carlo algorithms for accurate simulation. Here we use Web technology to allow investors access to stock data and simulation systems running on the World's most powerful Supercomputers.
Now is the time to examine how the Web can help your business. Further there is a tremendous opportunity for new systems and software startups for as I explained the marked now dominated by the software giants, is up for grabs! Such paradigm shifts (from in this case, single computer to world wide computer technology ) only happen every few years. I recommend seizing this opportunity!