Bob 'Ethernet' Metcalfe looks to the future
Published: 11 Oct 2004 15:45 BST
How can the current regulatory structure for spectrum sit with the ZigBee world when we'll have upwards of 16 billion radios that can reprogram themselves to use any frequency they like? Will we see more unlicensed spectrum, or a rush of people trying to police unpoliceable radio?
I'm not an expert in this area, but guessing what regulators do is a world unto itself. There is a trend towards a more unlicensed spectrum.
With the arrival of technologies like ZigBee, RFID, and Near Field Communication it looks like the people who will win will actually be the software and services industry. If we have billions of devices doing billions of transactions, will someone like IBM be the winner by providing the services to manage it all?
There's a big opportunity above the layer of the wireless technologies. With all these sensors and control points, we'll need to Google them. Their information will enter the Google stream and Google will process it.
Could the lack of these end-to-end business models be a bottleneck?
Yes, we won't see these new radio technologies shipping in mass-market quantities until the business processes are fixed.
As a venture capitalist, what are you looking at to ensure your investment in ZigBee is not a failure because it's too hard to use?
I have a new Apple Powerbook with a 17-inch screen. It's really gorgeous, and heavy, and power-consuming. I bought a mouse, because it's marginally easier than using the touchpad, and I chose a Bluetooth one. The Powerbook told me that it was a Bluetooth mouse and invited me to turn Bluetooth on. Consumers shouldn't need to know that it's Bluetooth and they shouldn't have to be turning it on.
A big issue with ZigBee is configuring and managing the systems. If you want to associate a switch with nine lights, how do you do it? Do you crank up the Cisco command line at home and do it?
People in the ZigBee space are working on how to do it. Do you bring the switch next to the light and press a button saying "this one", and then go to the next light and press the button again? It's an endless series of little consumer interface problems.
How many years has Cisco got left as the leading network company?
I was very wrong about Cisco on the upside, since had I been very cool there would be no Cisco. We at 3Com were doing routers before they even existed. So because I was so wrong back then I don't want to be too definitive now.
I also wrote in the early 1990s that Microsoft was going down the tube. Of course, it's a long tube.
A number of very sharp people work at Cisco, and the company has about the right orientation for consumers -- it's not inward-looking and distracted by political battling. That bodes well for the perpetuation of its monopoly a little bit longer. Cisco's competitors should not be prepared for its imminent demise -- unless it gets bought by Microsoft...
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