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SAN JOSE, CA: The Spring Internet World show provides ample proof that we are we rapidly entering the age of intercommunications, Things we saw and read only a few years ago in Science Fiction are now becoming available to anyone with a PC and modem. You can chat with friends in China, view rare art in Venice, phone folks in Phoenix, all for the price of a local phone call and a 'net account.

• The keynote address was presented this year by Bill Joy, one of the founders of JavaSoft and the author of the Unix "vi" editor, who, several years ago at the Uniforum show in Washington, D.C., where he was being presented with the Unix industry "Man (page) of the Year" award, actually said - and I swear I'm not making this up - "If I had known 'vi' was going to be around as long as it has, I would have done a better job on it." You have to love that kind of honesty. :wq
  In his address, he talked about how the Java programming language will become the ubiquitouus language of the 'net, and how it is being extended into Java VM and is now setting its' sites on becoming an OS, as opposed to just being an application language. Our opinion is that Java is an extremely important piece of the Internet puzzle, although we're not convinced that "vi" will last much longer.
• This exciting keynote was immediately followed by a satellite simulcast by Bill Gates, beamed directly from his recently purchased galaxy near ours. He was unable to attend in person, in that his wife had just delivered a baby the previous day. We think that a good name for baby Gates would be "1.1". We would love to report on what he actually said, but details in our notebook are slightly drool-stained, as we fell asleep seconds into his presentation. This might have been deliberate, as upon waking, we had a strange urge to buy a copy of MS-Office, even though we already own it. He probably talked about how important the 'net is to his company, being one of the few parts of the industry that he currently does not own or control.
• The show more that doubled in attendees - over 40,000 this year - and expanded across the street for more vendor space and even into tents in the area between the halls.
• One of the most visible battles this year was which company had the best shirts for its' booth staff. We liked the ones from Excalibur Technologies the best, although we were not influenced by any employees to say that, nor were we sent a mens large to our convenient PO box.
• AT&T announced their new Web-hosting service for small to medium-sized businesses. Starting at $600 per month, you can now have your web site hosted and supported by the phone company.
• NetScape actually had a booth this year, having spent the last year wandering into everyone elses booth to make a partnership deal with them. Their booth was a constant flurry of interactivity, demonstrating their new 3.0 browser which supports live interactive video. If you thought the 'net was slow before, just wait until everyone is using live video. They also had a crowd-attracting photo opp, where you could have your picture taken next to a lifesize cardboard cutout - only slightly more realistic - of Mark Andreeson, the "author" of NetScape, once again proving that many people who frequent this show desperately need a social life.
• The NII: Nathonal Information Infrastructure (www.gii-awards.com) held their Second Annual NII Awards, recognizing innovation and excellence in use of the Internet which was simulcast live on www.mediacast.com
• Probably the biggest segment of boothage this year was devoted to the Intranet, leaving us to wonder how long it will be before there is an Intranet World Show.
• The very industrious people at Mecklermedia www.iworld.com are actually running 17 more Internet World shows this year. Check their site for a show coming to a country or galaxy near you.
• IBM showed off their new Intranet software, plus their new CryptoLope(tm) secure container technology, plus announced new Java, NetScape and Adobe extensions to AIX.
• Britannica Online debuted its new online replacement for their traditional hard-copy publication, "combining Encyclopedia Britannica's depth and reliability with the most powerful tools of the digital age." You probably won't even need to search them out, as one of their door-to-door salesman will be by your house soon to show it to you.

This show reminds us of the old National Computer Conference (NCC) - the precursor to Comdex - in the late 70's and early 80's, where fledgling computer companies were young, hungry, and entrepeneureal. It's easy to envision that some of the companies here could become the major players of the future.

Too many URLs, too little time... Here's a grab bag of places you might want to schedule a visit to: www.netradio.net www.vdolive.com www.thuridon.com www.Christmas95.com www.osborne.com www.sfnb.com www.zoosoft.com www.alis.com www.bsdi.com www.infoaccess.com www.surfsoft.com www.alphamicro.com www.gosite.com www.radnet.com www.netscheme.com www.broadvision.com www.dataviz.com www.bestseller.com

See you next issue

Jon Sisk
www.jes.com

Original article for Computing News & Review, May 1996

Copyright © 1996 Jonathan E. Sisk.