Tomorrowland Never Dies: An Analysis Of Seybold

Have you ever seen an old film of, or actually been to, one of those old ""World of the Future"" type exhibits (the kind Disney just recently finally gave up on)? I'm a huge fan of historical World's Fair memorabilia, and it's mainly because I've always been fascinated by what people in the early part of this century thought the world would be like at the end of the century. Back then, people gave it a lot of thought, and while some of it was hilariously wrong, you'd be surprised how many eerily-accurate predictions were made. Most of the exhibits were positive and exciting visions of a glorious, gadget-filled future. Sure, we've gotten that to some extent, but I've always been very disappointed that I never got my picture-phone, my Jetson-like hovercraft, my robot friends and my own personal teleport module. And to make matters worse, I've begun over the last few years to realize that I was never GOING to get that future... especially in the vision of the world Bill Gates had l! aid out and which we were all resigned to follow.All that has changed.Steve Jobs' announcement at the recent Seybold Convention in San Francisco of the G4 and it's accouterments is far more than just a historic announcement for Apple - it is a true, honest-to-gosh, for-real, no-foolin'-this-time PARADIGM SHIFT in the world of computing, and by extension the world in general. The book has been rewritten; anything is possible again.Yesterday the Mac was merely the (mostly) better choice of the two widely available consumer oriented platforms. Today it is standing on the bow of the Titanic (of course without the same ending) with the wind in it's hair screaming ""Look ma, I'm king of the world!!""The 400 MHz G4 - the bottom of the line, don't forget - is three HUNDRED percent faster than a Pentium III 500 MHz. A 500 MHz G4 chip could well be four-fold faster. This is far, far more than just a bigger-than-normal speed bump for Mac owners; it is (at last) the pin that will burst Intel's dominant balloon. Even if the engineers at Intel could (miraculously) come up with a chip that approached the G4's current speed in less than the three years it should take them, the chip would either have to abandon the entire CISC architecture and the millions who depend on it via Windows, or it would be so big and hot you'd need a separate deep freezer to house it (just like in the old movies!).In short: Intel CANNOT compete with the G4. Even trying to rival it via parallel processing won't work; Motorola's chip can do that too.This is crushing news to Microsoft too; if Intel cannot compete and has flat-out lost the speed wars, the culture THEY raised to prize high MHz above all else will have little choice but to make their next computer a PowerPC. Hell, a G4 can probably emulate Windows at matching speed at this point, and we're at the BEGINNING of the G4 line! What would YOU do if you had to choose between a machine that was THREE TIMES faster than the fastest Wintel out there for LESS MONEY, and a system that is getting buggier, more bloated, more high-risk and less enjoyable by the hour?Even the greasiest, most virginal, most hard-core Quake-addicted nerd boys can figure THIS one out.A little less than a year ago I wrote a column for another magazine in which I predicted that the iMac was just step one in a ""world domination"" plan. This is the day of fulfillment.There are a number of important things the average Mac user needs to understand regarding the implications of the G4, but the most important (to me at least) are these:1. The G4 will benefit ALL computer users, even when Motorola (and IBM) license this technology into non-Mac boxes. Can you even imagine a Linux or Unix machine on a G4? You can bet the open-source developer and user community is drooling pretty hard right now! Watch for interest in Darwin and the rest of Apple's UNIX-oriented technologies to grow exponentially. Further, since Windows as it exists now (and projected for the future) cannot rebuild around the G4, Jobs and Motorola have parlayed the ultimate hat trick; instead of trying to steal scraps from the (MS/Intel) emperor's table, they have thrown him naked into the crowd; suddenly EVERYONE can see that what he has to offer simply is rather ordinary and inadequate. Windows users don't see it like we do, but tell them to trust you: the toppling of the MS/Intel monopolies will inevitably benefit them too. This is as good an example as any that if you follow the Wintel line you'll be at least three years behind.2. The G4 does NOT leave previous Mac owners in the cold. The chips are the same size and use the same amount of voltage; what this means is that upgrade cards are a near-certainty, even for the iMac. This hasn't been talked about much, nor will it be for some time, but somebody ought to tell all of you who just bought G3s that your machines are not now, nor will they become, obsolete.3. FINALLY, with the announcement it will very shortly become obvious to everyone (even the media!) that even though the Wintel hegemony will remain dominant for some time to come, their sun is SETTING, not rising. The rats (in this case, the geeks first) will begin deserting that ship almost immediately, and by mid-2000 I expect a full-fledged exodus among the cyber-elite.4. This really is a ""supercomputer on a chip,"" and you can expect to hear that phrase beaten into the ground in order to get it through the thick skulls of IT and IS management. This $1,599 computer from Apple can run with the $50,000 to $500,000 dogs, and wait till the G4 really gets going! Faced with raw power, impossibly low prices and ever-increasing compatibility/standarization, even the most MS-enslaved Pointy-Haired Bosses are going to have to break down and seriously look at G4s and their related offerings. This is what Apple was waiting for before going after the corporate and - in particular - government markets with a vengeance, and Microsoft and Intel are going to get hit so hard their ancestors will get bruises.5. Apple's announcement forces the government to take up a number nagging issues it's put off too long, like redefining a supercomputer, revisiting technology exports, coming up with a solid encryption standard, codifying online privacy and much more. This will have a HUGE impact on every aspect of computing from the high-end to the low-end for years to come.6. Almost overnight, Apple and its partners have become the dominant force driving the computing world. Imagine whole neighborhoods or complexes offering free Airport wireless LANs as a feature. Imagine the boost G4s and their forthcoming multiprocessing siblings will give to projects like SETI and genetic research, et al. Imagine schools and institutions (and even corporations) buying Macs (running off of MacOS X or Linux servers) as the de facto standard that actually WORKS. Imagine the savings and increased productivity! Imagine how much better a Mac and Linux/UNIX-based world would work. Now wake up! The future has arrived!And you - you, the perceptive, discriminating Mac user - were here first.You may grin wickedly now.For more, visit the MacCentral/MacWEEK Seybold coverage page at http://www.maccentral.com/seybold.shtml.