Business Week's guest on Jan. 22 was Stephen H. Wildstrom, editor of the magazine's popular weekly column, Technology & You. As he does in the column, Steve answered questions about computer and communications gear.
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OnlineHost: Good evening--and welcome to all of you in the AOL audience. Tonight's Business Week Online conference gives you a chance to pick the brain of our Technology & You columnist, Steve Wildstrom (SWildBW). Ever since it was introduced last year, Technology & You has won a wide following for its clear and helpful reviews and comments on the computer and communications gear you use--or should use.
Mail pours in to Steve each week via E-mail and fax--and now on our BW Online Message Boards. Steve has been involved with computers since his student days at the University of Michigan in the late 1960s, and the subject now takes up most of his time both at home and in his office at BW's Washington bureau--where in an earlier incarnation he was Senior News Editor and a specialist in economics.
Tonight's moderator is Jack Dierdorff (JackBW), consulting editor of Business Week Online, who in the long-ago beginnings of his 38 years with BW was the copy editor for a Special Report on how the transistor would revolutionize the world. He also helped engineer the magazine's transition from typewriters to computers.
JackBW: Good evening, Steve, and hi to all of you on AOL tonight.
SWildBW: Good evening.
JackBW: Steve, for the first question, I want to lead out of this week's column. How do you feel about Microsoft's Bob? Is it a big help for computer users?
SWildBW: Well, Microsoft has the right idea in trying to make things easier for users. But I don't think Bob is the right answer. It's very simpleminded, and I fear users will tire of it quickly. Also, it demands a tremendous amount of computer hardware to accomplish the little it does--at least a 486 processor and 8 megabytes of memory.
JackBW: I have an observation, Steve, based on Bob and some other new programs I've looked it. It seems to me that as PCs go more mass-market, we may see more of this simpleminded stuff, so-called, but maybe we're just blase sophisticates <g>.
SWildBW: Simple is critical. But simple doesn't have to be simpleminded, and it doesn't have to be cutesy. Look at the Mac.
JackBW: Here's a question about ease of use--a subject dear to many of our hearts.
Question: It seems to me PCs are getting harder and harder to set up, especially for multimedia. Is there any hope for the klutzy user?
SWildBW: One of the problems is that CD-ROMs and all the other multimedia gear are being added to a design that's more than 15 years old--the IBM PC architecture. It's way too hard. Windows 95--if it ever ships--will make these installations considerably easier. But until there are some real design changes, which are not in the cards, PCs will never be as simple to set up as Macs. Apple designed them for multimedia.
JackBW: Now, turning to Apple...
Question: What does the coming of the Apple clone mean for the consumer?
SWildBW: Good news for sure, and maybe some bad news. The good news is that competition among Macs and clones is sure to drive prices downward, especially if the total Mac market grows. The potential bad news is that one way Apple has been able to maintain the simplicity of Macs is by keeping tight control over the design. That will be much harder to do with clones. Quality control is likely to become as big a problem in the Mac world as it is in the Windows world.
Question: Steve, how long do you think it will be before communicating via the Internet is as fast, reliable, and secure as, say, AOL?
SWildBW: It's already faster. As of this week, we have a 56-kilobit- per-second connection to the Net in Washington--that's four times as fast as the best I can do with AOL. Reliability and security are much bigger issues, because no one "runs" the Internet. The World Wide Web is pretty interesting, but also completely chaotic. Security is being worked on, but it will be another year or two before any volume of secure commerce is carried on over the Net.
JackBW: Steve, Bill01 has a slightly overlapping question about speed.
Question: When do you think truly high-speed communications will be available to the masses (ISDN)?
SWildBW: That's an issue I'm exploring right now. I have (courtesy of Motorola) a couple of low-cost ISDN terminal adapters. These cost less than $700 each, and new units are coming out at $500. The cheapest ISDN adapter was over $2,000 just a few months ago, so the hardware has become dramatically cheaper. The ISDN lines are going in the end of next week, and then I'll have an idea just how hard it is to set these things up and how much help I'll get from Bell Atlantic. ISDN has been a very, very long time in coming, but I think its time is here. It just has to get easier to order and set up.
JackBW: And now, turning to the PowerPC and IBM, courtesy of DJWorth...
Question: Steve, what do you see as the future for the PowerPC, and is IBM very dedicated to its part of this project?
SWildBW: Let me talk about Apple first. They've done a great job with the Power Mac, and it deserves the success it's enjoying. But I can't figure out what IBM is doing. Apparently they have a great piece of hardware, but no operating system for it. You can buy one with AIX, IBM's version of Unix, which everyone who has ever used it hates. No one knows what the story is with Workplace OS, which is OS/2 for the PowerPC. I guess they'll start selling them later this year running Microsoft Windows NT, which has to be a huge embarrassment for IBM. I can't figure the whole thing out. Maybe the machines to watch for are the PowerPCs coming out of Motorola. I think they got tired of waiting for IBM and designed their own.
JackBW: Back to basics on multimedia, Steve, with a query from SoftSols.
Question: Pardon my ignorance, but what exactly does it mean when a computer is "designed for multimedia"?
SWildBW: Macs have the equivalent of a Soundblaster synthesizer built in. They have real--if not very good--speakers built in. They have a built-in connection for an internal or external CD-ROM drive. And Mac's System 7 operating system doesn't depend on a bunch of cobbled-together stuff to run multimedia the way Windows 3.1 does.
JackBW: Aha! At last a question about the Information Superhighway, from PBoddy.
Question: Who will win the fight to bring the Information Superhighway into our homes? Phone companies or cable?
SWildBW: Phone companies, I think. The problem with the cable folks is that they fundamentally don't get it. Their idea of the highway is a whole lot of cable channels and movies on which they control the programming. It's not going to work that way. The phone companies are comfortable in their role as common carriers. I think the telephone model will prevail, and the telcos will probably be providing the service (along with networking companies like AT&T, MCI, etc.).
JackBW: BankCFA wants your opinion on Power Macs vs. Pentiums, Steve.
Question: How do the Power Macs really compare to the Pentiums for spreadsheet, graphics, and database use?
SWildBW: Until very recently, Power Macs did pretty badly. That's because a Pentium is essentially a real fast 486, and it just takes software written for the 386/486 and runs it faster. The PPC is a whole new design, and it has to run older software by emulating a 68040 processor, which carries a huge performance penalty. I've recently been playing with Excel 5 for the Power Mac, along with some processor-intensive stuff like Kai's Power Tools, and it really flies along. And the PPC 604, due out a little later this year, will be the fastest PC chip by far.
JackBW: Here's a sort of riddle from Thee1Girl. How are you like the CIA--or are you?
Question: The CIA uses Lotus Notes, because of security. Do you?
SWildBW: I don't, but I'd like to. It's not something you can do by itself. Notes has excellent security, though the built-in encryption isn't up to the CIA's standards for classified material. I wonder just what they use it for.
Question: What do you see lasers doing in the PC world. Storage--yes. But what of the possibility of using them in processing (instead of on/off--0,1--as we have now)?
SWildBW: There's been a lot of experimentation with purely optical computers. In theory, they can run faster because they work at the speed of light, rather than 90% or so for copper. But I think it will be some years before optical computers make it out of the lab.
JackBW: Yume Jin has a concern that will spread as PCs become more and more commodity items.
Question: Thousands of new PCs were sold this Christmas to thousands of computer neophytes, and now thousands of customer complaints are coming in to hardware and software companies. What can we do to help make PCs easier to control, instead of confusing?
SWildBW: The plug-and-play component of Windows 95, if it works as promised, will be a big help. But it would help even more if the industry could come up with a real video standard that the makers of display adaptors, computers, and multimedia software all really stuck to. Video anomalies of one sort or another are the cause of a large percentage of consumer frustration--even problems that seem to have nothing to do with video.
JackBW: Let me break in here, Steve, with a question about Windows 95, since there has been a lot of discussion with you on the BW Online Message Boards about it. Will it ever ship?
SWildBW: I think Microsoft will get it out in August. Of course, I was saying I thought it would ship in June until the day they delayed it, so what do I know? Seriously, I've been running test versions since last summer, and I'm very impressed with the current version, the so-called "beta 2." There are still a lot of compatibility problems, especially with some older programs and with laptop hardware. Microsoft above all does not want to repeat the experience of Windows 3.0, which shipped full of bugs.
JackBW: This is rather a loaded question on AOL, Steve, but a good one--from RobertA86.
Question: What future do you see for the consumer online services (vs. the Internet, for example?)
SWildBW: I think they have a place for the foreseeable future, probably as commercial corners on the Internet--which is why they are all pursuing Internet connections so aggressively. Business Week Online couldn't exist on the naked Net. We're a business, and we need a way to charge for our information. AOL, CompuServe, and Prodigy know how to meter and bill for information. That, more than anything else, may be the value they add.
JackBW: MacRick wonders about Apple in the business market.
Question: Is there any chance that Apple will be able to make a real run at the business market with the PowerPC?
SWildBW: It's tough. I'm currently using Apple's new Windows-compatible Power Mac, and it's a wonderful machine. But corporate purchasing people and systems people are some of the most conservative folks in the world. They decided against Mac a long time ago, and it will be very hard to change their minds now.
JackBW: Steve, Writer FL has what sounds like a writer's problem for you.
Question: I wonder if you've heard about the apparent conflict between WordPerfect and Stacker, which results in a lot of Windows crashes for WP Windows programs.
SWildBW: I have to say that's a new one for me. I use Stacker on the computer I'm working on right now, but not WordPerfect. I'll check into it, though.
JackBW: Try this from EddisJ.
Question: Is OS/2 Warp any good? I'm tired of Windows 3.1 and don't want to wait till August for Win95.
SWildBW: OS/2 is a very solid operating system. It may not provide better Windows than Windows, but it certainly offers more stable Windows. Two problems, though: First, a lot of hardware (video cards and such) that are supported by Windows don't run under Warp. And, more important, the 32-bit software that's being written for Win 95 won't run under OS/2. But if you want to take your chances, keeping open the option of switching back, it may be worth a try.
JackBW: Sgt Matt has a practical question about Win95 vs. the Mac.
Question: Why bother to wait for Win95 to ship when the Macs have been out for over 10 years and already do all the things Win95 promises to do?
SWildBW: What are you supposed to do with the PC and the software you already own? Also, Win95 will do some things Macs don't do very well.
JackBW: One last question, from Bruensing.
Question: What happens to personal privacy with online computing and the vast amount of information anyone can get from the wire on anyone connected to them, e.g. phone ID, cross-reference with Social Security numbers, credit summaries, etc.?
SWildBW: Better security is badly needed. The technology exists, but the infrastructure for using it is weak. Also, government policies have hindered the broader use of commercial encryption technology.
JackBW: Thanks, Steve, and thanks to all of you for your questions. I'm sorry we couldn't take more of them.
SWildBW: Thank you.
OnlineHost: Thanks to Steve Wildstrom and Business Week for this informative discussion. You can keep talking by moving over to the BW Chat Room, or by posting messages at any time on the BW Online Message Boards (Technology & You has its own folder under Computers & Communications). So ask more questions--or add the ones we didn't have time for tonight.
We hope to see you Friday, Jan. 27, at 9 pm ET in the Globe for a special conference on the controversial balanced-budget amendment--and on Sunday, Jan. 29, also at 9 pm ET in the Globe, for BW's regular weekly conference, this time on the Best Mutual Funds. Meantime, check out all the features of BW Online (keyword: BW). Good night!
Copyright 1995, McGraw-Hill, Inc. All rights reserved.
