CXO Accent

Wireless home, free hardware

Some crystal gazing into the not-so-distant future

V Chandrasekhar

Gordon Moore's observation in 1965 that the number of transistors per square inch on integrated circuits will double every year still holds true. This trend however does not hold true for the software industry as it can never keep pace with the hardware industry'for two fundamental reasons. One, chips are made by machines and software is still written by human beings. The second reason is that unless hardware is available system software cannot be developed. Unless system software is available, applications cannot be developed. Hence there will always be a 3-5 year gap between software and hardware.

Having said that, I believe the future will be ruled by standards-based hardware and software. Every enterprise software application will be based on a service oriented architecture. While current trends in the hardware industry are focussed on increasing capacity (processors, memory, storage), in future standards will be based on inter-operability, so you will no longer have to think about which application will run on what OS. Any application you buy off the shelf will have the ability to run on multiple operating systems. Everything will be plug and play.

While companies today are eager to protect their turf by forcing applications to run on specific platforms, in future market demand will force them to write only applications that have the ability to run on any platform. In essence, there will be no separate packages for different platforms.

A few years back, hardly any analyst could have predicted the surge in the cellular base in India. Today if you notice the technological developments happening on your cellphone, you will notice that the mobile is the future PC. Many mobiles today'besides having the features of an MP3 player, FM radio and camera'also boast of some features which are present in your PC. Future mobiles will come embedded with 100 GB hard disk drives, giving you enough capacity to not only store your office files but also your child's encyclopaedia and your entire MP3 collection. You will even have small CD-ROM/DVD-ROM drives in your mobile phone.

For watching movies on a bigger screen, you could just use the projector facility on your cell phone to project the movie on any surface you want. Your mobile phone will one day become the only device for every need.

Looking at the trends in the networking space, wireless technologies will rule, and we will have a world free of wires. Every device will be IP-enabled, and every home will be a wireless home. Your fridge, air-conditioner and possibly every other gadget could be controlled from your mobile phone, not only in your home, but also remotely.

So what happens to the humble PC which ruled the world for decades? Well, eventually the PC will merge into the entertainment world with your basic TV converting itself into a PC. Desktops will be replaced by flat-panel TVs. You will have consumer electronic players such as Sony selling PCs. Like bandwidth costs, even the cost of hardware vis-à-vis software will be so negligible that you may have a situation where major software vendors give you free PCs with every software application you buy. Sounds futuristic? Yes, but could you have imagined the multi-functional mobile phone for the price at which it's sold today?

Chandrasekhar is the chief technology officer of the Bank of Baroda