of IBM’s house-sized monsters. Olsen’s belief was that all processing could
be centralized, and those relatively few people who needed access to the
processor and its data could do so through desktop dumb terminals, which
were essentially a keyboard and a monitor with a long cable that connected
to a computer.
Ironically, both IBM and Digital have both seen their fortunes change dramati-
cally since then. IBM made a dramatic move in 1981 when it introduced the
first personal computer; for a while that machine became the tail that wagged
the company’s dog, but eventually Big Blue got out of the manufacturing side
of the desktop business, and then the laptop business, to concentrate on its
core business of business services, electronic storage systems, and still-huge
mainframe computers.
DEC watched its core business of mid-sized computers be eaten alive by
armies of PCs that ended up on every desk in an office from secretary to
chairman of the board. The company was eventually taken over by Compaq
Computer, which was born as a PC competitor to IBM; Compaq later was gob-
bled up by Hewlett-Packard, which was a more nimble version of DEC.
Anyhow, to come to a point here (You were wondering?), the irony is that in
some ways Olsen was correct. Nearly three out of four homes in the United
States have PCs, and more than half of these users have more than one
machine with a network connection between them; at the same time nearly
every computer on the planet is in some way linked to the World Wide Web.
The Internet is essentially one gigantic computer, with users able to use the
resources of others. Somewhere out there are millions of books, hundreds of
thousands of pieces of music and video, global e-mail and instant messaging,
and even shared processing.
Working the Net............................................................................................
And so, the personal computer — and your wired or wireless laptop — have
become not-at-all-dumb terminals in a global network. You don’t need to have
a disk with a copy of the Seattle phone book in your computer; it’s out there
on the Web. You don’t need to balance your checkbook with pen and paper;
instead you can reach into your bank’s mainframe and look at all the transac-
tions recorded there. And the idea of carrying around a thick book full of
airline schedules — as business travelers we used to do that not that long
ago — sounds ludicrous today. Why do that when you can log on to the
Internet from your wireless laptop and check times, gates, and prices?
Part IV: Failing to Communicate ................................
