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To: Joe S Pack who wrote (22967)	2/22/1999 9:07:00 AM
From: Frank A. Coluccio	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 77400

Hi Nat, >>Some smart(?) guy at the leading mainframe vendor in 60's theorized that computer will be very expensive for ordinary folks and only evolutionary path should be followed is to enlarge machines and attach hundreds of remote terminals and then rent the terminals.<< In some ways we've got "smart guys" today, as well, doing the same things, oddly enough, in large enterprises. Servers are stacked atop one another, figuratively and literally, in what now are called server farms, which mimic the glass houses of yore... no - they are actually living in glass houses today, as well. Today's dumb terminals in the enterprise setting are the appendaged PCs at the extremeties, some of which can, on some levels, be considered dumb for all intents and purposes. Thin clients or not. As they receive their applications and services, as well as their usage policy decisions, from the farm. It's only a matter of degree, as to whether we want to characterize these as intelligent in nature, or dumb. Here, the mainframe channel equivalent is achieved through the substitution of a maze of ultra high speed LAN backbone arteries in a vast, contiguous fabric. >>What they failed to see was how technology will evolve and make that notion ridiculus after 25 years. << Oops, I guess I got ahead of the script. >>But even in those environment the configurations are drastically different than the original model. So what happened within the past 25 years on computer front is a history replete with technology than status quo and so called business smarts. For one thing, the time-shared mainframes of the Sixties and Seventies have given way to Web Based servers, which in principle is the same thing. >>I envision the same evolutionary path on the communications infrastructure. So, more and more intelligence will migrate towards the edge. This evolution will be dictated not only by the technology in communication hardware/software but also to some extent by a lot intelligent and quality sensitive applications at the edge. << I think that we continue to be saying the same things. There appears to be differences because the channels that connect the elements are differently situated in space than they were before, made possible by greater bandwidth carrying capabilities in an increased variety of media forms, but the knee bone is still connected in the same way to the... Through a series of inversions in the apparent topologies, I can see and to some extent agree with the points you've made, though. Thanks and best regards, Frank Coluccio