12/28/98 A LITTLE BETTER, A LITTLE FASTER IN 1999

A LITTLE BETTER, A LITTLE FASTER IN 1999
Next year will see flat-panel displays on desktops, and zippier Net access at home
As users of personal computers and other high-tech products look ahead to 1999, they should expect more evolution than revolution. But beneath a placid surface, there are stirrings of some exciting things to come.
For PCs themselves, the trend will be to less of the same. There are no dramatic hardware developments on the horizon, unless you can get psyched about processor speeds going from 450 MHz to 500 MHz. Computers will continue to get cheaper, though the price drop will probably slow a bit as demand absorbs a glut of components. Still, the sub-$500 PC should be commonplace by midyear, along with sub-$1,000 notebooks for individual consumers. Laptops aimed at more free-spending business buyers will continue to get smaller, lighter, more powerful--and cheaper, too.
WIN 2000 DELAY. The biggest hardware news will be the appearance of flat-panel displays on desktops, both in the office and at home. Prices of 15-in. liquid crystal displays have fallen to just over $1,000 and will soon drop into the three digits. Because of different measurement standards, a 15-in. LCD offers nearly as much viewing area as a 17-in. CRT monitor--and considerably better image quality.
The big software drama should be Windows 2000, the operating system formerly known as NT 5.0. Microsoft Corp. is billing it as the operating system of choice for all business computers, from laptops to monster database servers. A future version also will replace Windows 98 on home machines. But the project is way behind schedule. Microsoft officials concede that Windows 2000 is unlikely to ship before the end of 1999--and I wouldn't even bet on that. The other major operating system in the works, Apple Computer Inc.'s Mac OS X, also is headed for yearend release. It offers better memory protection and improves your ability to do tasks simultaneously.
After a couple years of disappointment, 1999 will finally see high-speed Internet access in homes start to become a reality. Cable carriers and local phone companies spy a real business opportunity in adding Internet service to their offerings. Chances are that your neighborhood will initially be offered either two-way cable or telephone-based digital subscriber line (DSL) service. Typically, charges run about $40 a month for cable-based Internet access and somewhat higher for DSL, but these fees are likely to come down, especially in communities where cable and phone companies are duking it out.
Consumers will find that lines promising speeds of a megabit or more per second won't boost sluggish Web access all that much. On big file downloads, you'll realize the full potential of a high-speed circuit. But for viewing Web pages, I find surprisingly little difference among my T-1 connection in the office, my 64-kilobit-per-second ISDN link at home, and a 33.6-kbps dialup connection on the road.
More important than raw speed is the full-time Internet connection--no more waiting for modems to connect, no logging in. This completely changes the way you think about your computer, as the Net becomes a perennial extension of your desktop.
HOME NETWORKS. The simultaneous growth of multicomputer homes and high-speed Internet links will create demand for home networks that allow numerous computers to share a Net connection. The trick to a successful home network is simple setup and operation, without expensive and disruptive rewiring. Products just hitting the market meet those requirements, and I'll be writing about them in an upcoming column.
Outside the home, digital wireless communications of all sorts will take off in the U.S. as network coverage improves and competition among carriers drives prices down. All sorts of new wireless devices also will emerge. For example, 3Com Corp. is developing the Palm VII with a built-in wireless modem, while a number of cell phones that include organizers and E-mail will hit the market.
No discussion of 1999 would be complete without mention of the Millennium Bug. My prediction: When the year 2000 dawns, most things will go on working. For all the dire predictions, perils known about well in advance don't cause disasters because most people are not idiots and take preventive action. Companies are working all out to deal with Y2K problems. Some small businesses are ignoring them and are going to get burned; the rest of us are apt to escape with relatively minor glitches. As 1998 draws to a close, I wish everyone happy and healthy computing in the last year of the century.
BY STEPHEN H. WILDSTROM