Martin Banks, Personal Computer World 09/89 - checked

September 1989

I have to take it all back, of course. It was foolish of me to suggest that there was no fun left in the PC business: that it had become all too much of a 'business'.

It has been a recurrent theme of mine for some time, ever since the people at Apple started to wear suits and dealers decided to become 'value-added resellers'. The PC business was getting far too serious, and actually pretending that it was a real industry, rather than a group of guys, you know, like, hanging out man, having some fun.

That surface gloss has gone of course, and will not be seen again. But that is not to say there is no longer any fun to be had, especially if your job is to stand on the outside of the computer industry and look in. From that position, some of the current machinations are quite exciting, if a good deal more subtle and, dare I say it, 'mature'.

Take the subject of PC operating systems - indeed, take the subject of PCs per se. When you have a DOS or OS/2 based box from the likes of Compaq or IBM which has the same power as a Unix-based engineering workstation from the likes of Sun, and when Sun can produce a workstation that is cheaper than a reasonably configured 386-powered IBM PS/2, then the clear distinctions between categories disappears.

And does that matter? Well, yes, in a word. It wouldn't have done not so long ago, for the majority of the world was DOS based. There was some use of Unix in specialised areas of the broad 'PC' market, and there was a minority share for the devotees of the Apple product range, in particular the Macintosh.

But now things are different, and this is where the fun starts. In fact, the next decade could be particularly interesting, exciting even, if you like to get your fun that way.

I managed to spend some time earlier this year with Gordon Eubank, boss of US software supplier, Symantec, and discovered that he feels it could be this way. It could also, by definition, put an end to the years of being 'outcast' from the cut and thrust of the commercial market that has beset a large number of different computer systems.

"We are going from a world where there is a single, dominant standard, to one where there are multiple standards." That was how ex-submariner, Gordon, saw the nineties. In other words, the days of MS-DOS Or Nothing were coming to an end.

Yes, I know all about Acorn's Archimedes, Commodore's Amiga, Atari's ST. They have all made rightful claims to a share of the business market and all failed because of that one problem - no MS-DOS. If even Apple couldn't break the IBM/ Microsoft stranglehold, what chance had the others.

Now, according to Gordon, they do have a chance, and the key to the change of fortunes is network technology. "Things will change from the current situation, where you have individuals working with personal computers relatively personally to a world where we serve collective needs across networks, with multiple platforms hooked in," he said. And those platforms will be a wide range of hardware running different operating systems such as OS/2, Unix, the Macintosh and, yes, even DOS.

This carries with it an implicit change in the way we think about the systems we use. If we can connect anything, or a fairly broad sub-set of 'anything', into the network, then it will no longer be necessary to think in terms of compromise. We won't have to 'put up with' a PC because every really wanted to use is incompatible.

If Gordon's scenario is correct, new software tools will appear at the network level which will work to ensure data transparency between different computer systems. When they arrive, users will then be able to choose the best machine for a task, not the best compromise.

As graphics becomes increasingly de rigueur, even among the staidest of corporate users, this change could open up much of the business and commercial marketplace to the likes of Acorn, Commodore and Atari. They have, after all, already earned their spurs in the production of good quality, low cost graphics machines.

Gordon sees this definitely happening with the Mac, for example, so there is no reason for there not to be a place for these other machines as well, so long as someone sees fit to produce the necessary software to integrate them into the network.

At this point, I am sure that there will be several voices raised amongst those readers who do not use a PC in their work. Their question will undoubtedly be along the lines of 'what has this to do with me?' The answer, I suspect, could be 'as much as you want.'

You may see yourself sitting at home, playing games on an Amiga or ST and never getting directly involved in communications with other users, and never doing anything with the box that is remunerative. That may be so, but there are going to be thousands, maybe millions eventually, who will.

Home working will start to creep in whether we like it or not, so the concept of 'networks' will inevitably expand to mean much more than a yard or two of co-ax or twisted pair cable between a few PCs. It will probably be an integral part of the services offered by the telephone companies.

Which will mean that the tools of transparency needed could, eventually, be available to everyone. So, just as you may not need to talk to your cousins in Australia urgently and the telephone offers the possibility of doing so, just for a chat, so it will be when you feel it might be fun to link your Amiga (or whatever) to your best friend's Sun workstation (or whatever) in New Zealand, for fun or (dare one say it in public) profit.

And would that be fun? For us I suspect it will. For some in the industry, it might not be. As Gordon Eubank suggested, it is something that Microsoft's 'young Mr Gates' is going to have to accept.

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