Byte Me
Copyright 1996 by Frank Catalano
(from Eastsideweek, 1/3/96)

FIVE-YEAR ITCH: The start of a new year brings with it the charmingly
futile tradition of technology columnists assessing the 12 months ahead.
It's daunting in an industry with a rate of change that would make a
politician blush.

Caution isn't a bad idea, especially in light of an old e-mail recently
and gleefully regurgitated by on-line veteran Stuart Gitlow. Dated
October 1989, the missive rails against a new service's inept management
and questions its very viability. The author was Frank Catalano; the
service, America Online. As Gitlow dryly comments, "Guess you didn't buy
the stock either, eh?"

So, let's look at the long term with the expectation that everyone --
except those who are e-mail-retentive -- will have forgotten what was
written by then. This requires a modified Delphi Method thrown up against
consumer psychology and a really good dartboard. Though five-year
forecasts are usually the province of futurists (the technical term for
science fiction writers without imagination), on to 2001. Open the
predictive bay doors, Hal.

Hardware -- Sony creates an entire line of single-purpose PC devices,
building on the successful model of the Sony Playstation, and markets
them as overpowered consumer electronics products. Average shelf price is
under $200.

Where Sony goes single-purpose, Hewlett-Packard becomes the player to
beat in general-purpose personal computers, from palmtop to desktop. HP's
emphasis on quality and solid engineering over glitz or fads gains it a
solid following among wary new PC buyers in the home market.

Apple steadfastly maintains its independence, until it is finally merged
with Sony and becomes Sony's general purpose computing division. Where HP
is safe, SnApple is trendy.

IBM continues to buy everything in sight in an effort to increase ballast
and winds up with lots of deck chairs to re-arrange. Supporters of the
failed 3DO and Philips CD-I systems become the Commodore Amigans of the
new decade.

Software -- Microsoft leaves its 25th year as a dominant force in desktop
operating systems and mainstream business software. It is a less
successful player in entertainment and information programming across
multiple delivery platforms. It becomes an entrant in the wireless
networking of home appliances (after first assuring consumers their
toasters won't plot with their PCs) after its attempted purchase of
Novell.

Most surviving multimedia start-ups become independent studios or labels
depending on a couple of dozen large software publishers to get their
titles to market. But "multimedia" by itself no longer means anything,
because most everything is. Software titles commonly blur the distinction
between what's on the disc and what information is pulled from a
real-time on-line connection.

Communications -- CompuServe and America Online have become popular .com
sites on the Internet and are no longer viewed as proprietary commercial
services, but rather data theme parks requiring paid day passes. The
Microsoft Network has replaced the amateurish Yahoo and Lycos as the
ultimate Internet site directory.

While the Internet PC has become more of a cheap Styrofoam surfboard than
a replacement for the PC, the ever-mutating Internet itself has become
the superset for all real-time interactive communication. Virtual life
and religion become indistinguishable, both relying on faith in unseen
beings.

Information broadcast to talking wireless devices for time-critical
information is an annoyance in theaters -- the latest step in the
evolutionary ladder that has climbed through wristwatch chimes, pager
beeps, and cell phone trills.

Interactive TV trials start for real, now that an infrastructure is
finally in place.

Retail -- Software, with few exceptions, winds up being sold where its
content or market dictates people would expect to find it. Consumer
software winds up in bookstores (reference and education), video stores
(rental movies on Digital Video Disc), music stores (entertainment), and
mass merchants (popular hits). Business software moves to low-margin mail
order operations and office superstores.

Hardware settles similarly, with home machines at mass merchants and
consumer electronics outlets, office systems at office superstores, and
high-end business machines through computer consultants.




What used to be exclusively software and hardware stores are largely
gone. The remaining computer stores go back to carrying bleeding-edge
technologies catering to single males with too much money.

Of course, this vision could get blown up by a single unexpected
development -- much as the World Wide Web's "sudden" popularity this
decade set every software and on-line service scrambling. But with any
luck at all, reality in five years will alter the memory of this set of
predictions to render them merely quaint -- or really, really good
science fiction.

(Frank Catalano, a Seattle-area analyst and marketing strategist for
software and new media companies, can be reached at fcatalano@aol.com.)

Copyright 1996 by Frank Catalano. Reproduction or redistribution without
permission prohibited.