Wireless could revamp PCs of the future

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The introduction of the PC 20 years ago forever changed the nature of computing, shifting control of information from behind the glass walls of corporate data centers to desktops around the world.

Soon, demands for mobility and a proliferation of wireless networks could cause another shift on computing almost as dramatic as the development of the PC itself.

"Communications has always been and will continue to be the killer app on the PC," said David Bradley, a senior IBM engineer who helped develop the basic I/O system of the original PC 20 years ago. Wireless, he added, is at the same infant stage of development "as the Internet five or six years ago."

Omnipresent wireless communications will dictate the shape and uses of the future PC, said Jim Thannum, director of Internet engineering and communications at FedEx Corp. in Memphis. Wireless, starting with the 802.11B LAN standard widely embraced by corporations as well as an increasing number of home users, will force "a fundamental change in the form factor of the desktop workstation," he said. "That thing that sits on my desk with a monitor and keyboard will be a dinosaur in the future."

Desktops, Thannum predicted, will be replaced by a new family of highly mobile computers and appliances that use wireless for all forms of connectivity currently handled by wires today.

Manufacturers will make the shift to wireless easier by bundling connections to multiple over-the-air networks directly into silicon, Thannum predicted. He expects that in time, it will cost less to build in wireless than Ethernet cards. For corporate networks, Thannum said total cost of ownership for wireless LANs could be less than wired networks.

That's because many routine support calls on today's wired networks involve replacing wired connectors -- and with wireless, those connectors go away. Wireless also makes it easier to reconfigure the workplace by eliminating costly wire runs, Thannum added. "We built a brand new building here [in Memphis] two years ago with jacks in all the walls; and after two years, all those jacks are now in the wrong places" to serve users, he said.

Marty Larson, CIO at Vancouver, Wash.-based Consolidated Freightwaysagreed with Thannum that wireless can help reduce total ownership costs. The price spread between wired and wireless LAN hardware