Network World columnists and newsletter
authors share soulful opinions on some of the network topics
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Network World,
09/11/00
Wireless
On to wireless. Where do you see wireless Internet access heading?
McClimans: Wireless access is going to be huge, but not for the traditional type of wireless access we see today. It's not going to replicate the existing browser infrastructure. Clearly the applications and the way we use the Web will need to change because we don't have the bandwidth, we don't have the screen size, we don't have the battery resources in the wireless devices to replicate exactly what we're doing.
Gibbs: Hold on - we will in a short time. There are cell phones coming out with high-resolution screens; we've got a number of new power supplies coming out. For example, the microturbines that they're planning to build as batteries over storage mechanisms look very, very promising.
McClimans: I agree. Those are clearly the idea of where we're going.
So three years from now, where will the wireless Internet device fit into an enterprise environment?
Kearns: You have to remember that 'wireless device' has a broad meaning. Wireless Ethernet is a big thing. That's delivering services to your laptop that you're carrying around with a very high-resolution screen. That's vastly different from [Wireless Application Protocol]-enabled devices that you carry in your pocket.
McClimans: Right. And one model, which simply says you take the existing media infrastructure and convert that from wire-base to wireless, really doesn't require any redesign of the technology. The only real impact there is that the data speed may be variable or your access may be limited. What I think of when I talk about wireless Web access really are the handheld devices - it's the Palms, the Windows CE devices that really grow and blend with the gaming devices, pagers, cell phones. And that becomes a personal communications tool, and every type of communication that we do today - across e-mail, the telephone, video - that will need to take place across that type of device. That's a very big step.
Gibbs: What we're looking at though is the beginning of an explosion of devices.
Taylor: And from the enterprise perspective, there are two things playing off each other in terms of how fast this explosion happens. On the one hand, we could argue that pretty soon we'll start seeing enterprises give all their employees whatever this new wireless device is, very much like some are giving away computers to their people. Well, gee, it's a great fringe benefit, but it also means a person can never leave work because they don't have any excuses as to why they can't check their e-mail. And so, gosh, give them a cell phone and tell them to use it all they want to, and it also means they're always available. On the other side, wireless devices are intrinsically less secure than wired devices, so there will probably be a bit of a normal sine curve of popularity and lack of popularity as Corporation X puts everything it has available via the wireless Web and all of a sudden somebody figures out, gee, it's easy to hack in to.
Gibbs: Oh, there is a real disaster in the making here because already you talk to IT managers and they're very aware of the amount of data that's going around in Palms. Forget about the PC problems. You've got all these Palm devices and then you'll have smart pagers and things hanging off key chains. I think the scale of the risk we're entering into isn't even being talked about yet, and it's going to come up extremely quickly.
Mark, is the risk so great that you would recommend enterprise IT managers not give corporate users access to these wireless devices?
Gibbs: Absolutely not. They have no choice about it. There's nothing optional about this.
So how can they ensure that a disaster isn't going to wipe them out?
Gibbs: They've got to keep tabs on what's happening. You just don't have a choice in this matter. All you can do is understand the environment that's coming toward you, know as much about the technologies and their implications as you possibly can. Where you can make choices and where you can influence the direction you absolutely have to start setting standards. So, for example, you might say, 'No, we're not going to allow Palms in our organization, and we'll have a policy about the use of this kind of device.'
McClimans: There are things you can do that are straightforward to identify data or content that is at risk and to restrict that from these devices. There are also policies and procedures that you can set up much like we learned from the PC craze with data theft and viruses that provide for the restoration of services in case something does occur. What we're really talking about is disaster management.
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