Jerry Fishenden's Weblog Archives - March 2005

March 10 2005

Hot off the press is the announcement today that Microsoft is acquiring Groove Networks, who will become part of the Microsoft Information Worker team. This is great news, with Ray Ozzie, Groove Founder and the original creator of what was then Iris Associates Notes (later Lotus Notes and later still IBM Lotus Notes) taking on the role as an additional Chief Technical Officer reporting to Bill Gates.

Given the natural predisposition of Microsoft towards edge-based and federated computing architectures, the innovative peer-to-peer Groove technologies will make a great fit. I'll follow up what this means in future blogs.

I presume I'm not alone when I scratch my head about some of the thinking around that suggests the Internet is just about the Web and about Web browsers? If you look at eGIF for example, I have long suggested that the mandate that all systems must be delivered into a browser reflects an outdated view of the Internet. It seems to confuse the Internet and the WWW.

Let me explain what I mean with a simple illustration. In the future, pervasive computing will impact the way we think about society - everything from where and when we work, to how and where we receive health and social care, through to learning paradigms. All of this will be enabled by the Internet, but there will be not a browser or WWW server to be seen. Home healthcare devices that enable us to live longer, richer lives in the future will include small discrete devices that run on low powered (battery?) network systems that are always connected. Why would you want a browser on them? Any more than you have a browser on a wristwatch (... although I guess some of you may have that!).

If we can move even a fraction of health and social care out of institutions and into our own homes, what a great win for everyone: us, since we prefer to live in our homes than in institutions. And for those offering health and social care - who can repurpose and re-factor the way they think and operate. Isn't this in a sense the ultimate "rural/cottage hospital"? The very thing which at the moment seems out of vogue and being replaced with large hospitals, often remote and difficult for both patients and their relatives to access.

Many of these people will not even know they are using the Internet: they will be empowered by devices that enable them to monitor and control their medication, potentially without any intervention on their own part. And such devices could be permanently connected, enabling remote diagnostics (some potentially automated, some under personal supervision of specialist consultants) to ensure the patient is receiving the right treatment, the right dosages. Such technology could also help care wardens - who perhaps rather than being confined to specially built projects, could be at large in the community - alerted to any issues by intelligent devices flagging warning signs if someone elderly or ill does not appear to be behaving as would normally be expected. We've also seen progress in robotics - currently in the military, looking at the potential for the retrieval of battlefield casualties - which eventually will become commoditised and available for use in the home (such as enabling a carer to turn a patient in bed - something that might not otherwise be physically possible for that carer).

So, when I say I scratch my head, I hope you can see why. It's time to understand the true significance of the Internet and take away some of the shackles that see it only in terms of browsers and WWW servers.