Larry Ellison, Oracle's CEO, may be wrong, but he's never in doubt. Back in 1995 in Paris he started predicting that Network Computers (NCs) would replace Personal Computers (PCs) as the computing equipment of choice.
The reasons were obvious, at least to him. PCs had gotten too complicated, he said. And besides, every fifteen years or so there's a new revolutionary product in the computing business that replaces what went before.
Network Computers were supposed to be slimmed down versions of Personal Computers. They might have a screen, a microprocessor, some memory chips, a keyboard and a mouse. The most important component would be the network connection.
That magic part would connect the Network Computer to the Net. There would only be rudimentary software and memory on the Network Computer. Most software and serious memory would be out there on the Net where it could be easily maintained. The system would run on Java and use Oracle databases. Microsoft software would be nowhere in sight.
The idea caught on with the industry insiders, journalists, venture capitalists and other trumpeters of the great Internet Bubble. In mid-1996, Business Week devoted a Special Report to Network Computer.
By then there was a price target, $500 and all kinds of companies were lining up to make products that would capitalize on this powerful Network Computer trend. Bandai, a Japanese company, announced that it would soon be selling a $600 Network Computer in the US. Apple had designed one called the Pippin.
There were only two figures in the computer business who didn't share the enthusiasm for the Network Computer concept. Andy Grove of Intel hedged his bets by having teams work on projects that would set Intel up to be a player if Ellison was right. Bill Gates set Microsoft on a path of developing its own solutions.
Larry Ellison said that Network Computers would be widely available in 1996 but by mid-1997 that hadn't happened. Gateway had released a Network Computer in May but that was about it. Still, no lesser authority figure than the Economist was saying that "there is broad agreement that NCs are indeed the future."
Not much more happened in 1997 but in 1998 the Economist was still predicting that the PC would be "entering its twilight years by the beginning of the millennium." The idea of the Network Computer as an "information appliance" had caught on and there were predictions that the folks who would really shift the Network Computer revolution into high gear would be companies like Sony.
Now it's 2003. Look around you. How many Network Computers do you see? How about PCs? Does it seem like there are less of them? And what about Larry Ellison?
If his speech at this year's Comdex is any indication, Mr. Ellison is no less flamboyant and no less sure of himself than he was in 1995. Since he's a lot like George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld and not very likely to admit it when things haven't gone exactly the way he predicted, we'll have to sort things out for him. Start with the source of the idea itself.
The source of the Network Computer idea was Larry Ellison. He arrived at it without paying a lot of attention to what consumers and systems administrators really wanted. He probably figured he knew better than they did.
But those pesky buyers confounded his prediction. It turned out that consumers weren't comfortable giving up their computers for a box that connected them to the Net. It turned out that systems administrators for corporate networks were quite willing to buy the concept, but they weren't willing to give up their Microsoft software to do it and trust everything to Java.
Even if he didn't say it, Larry Ellison's prediction made some assumptions about technological development that had to come true. For the Network Computer concept to work, broadband connections would have to penetrate the market much faster than they have. And manufacturers needed to be able to make money on NC devices that sold for less than $1000. Neither happened.
There were other changes in the landscape that no one foresaw back in 1995. While broadband has been slower off the mark than predicted, wireless connection to the Net has become an important part of computing in the Twenty-First Century.
Meanwhile companies in the industry, in part responding to Larry Ellison's vision, produced smaller, simpler computers. Laptops become commonplace. Sony introduced the super slim, super light Vaio. The tablet PC generated more actual consumer interest than the Network Computer ever did.
A huge percentage of the equipment solutions use Microsoft software in some form. Most of them come prepared to connect to the Net via wired or wireless means.
That said, Larry Ellison was right about a lot of things. He was right that the PCs in 1995 were clunky, hard to use and harder to carry around, but wrong about how simple, inexpensive machines would be a key part of how we do our computing in the new century.
He was right about seeing Web-based computing as an effective way to handle many applications, but he was wrong on how pervasive it would be and wrong on the timing. Even so his ideas and oratory helped shape the development of business computing.
Marc Benioff of salesforce.com would certainly agree. His whole company is founded on the idea of freedom from software that lives on individual computers. That only makes sense since he's friends with Larry Ellison, whom he worked at Oracle. If salesforce.com succeeds, Larry Ellison will be one of the people Marc Benioff should thank.
Today Larry Ellison is saying that it's a dumb idea for the user to have to put together the pieces of a computing system. In effect, he's saying that the way we create individual computer systems is clunky and hard to use. His suggestion: the computer maker should be responsible for putting the whole system together.
That's what he sees as part of the future of computing. And, if you're smart, you'll be thinking about what it might mean for you.
