From...

August 20, 1999
Web posted at: 4:45 p.m. EDT (2045 GMT)

by Frank Hayes

INTERACTIVE

Using a scale of 1 to 7, where 1 is "Not at All Likely" and 7 is "Very Likely," how likely would you be to purchase a PC now that...

(IDG) -- Not so fast.

That's the message corporate information technology shops have for vendors that want to radically redesign the venerable desktop PC.

Intel Corp. and Microsoft Corp. are spearheading those plans through initiatives with names like PC 99, Easy PC and Legacy-Free PC. They would wipe out some elements of the desktop computer that have been standard since the IBM Personal Computer was introduced in 1981. And the first PC designs based on the new specifications, from Intel, IBM, Gateway and Hewlett-Packard Co., will be previewed at Intel's Developer's Forum later this month in Palm Springs, Calif.

But the changes -- which include elimination of serial and printer ports, traditional Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) add-in card slots and even floppy-disk drives -- could wreak havoc on corporate IT departments and their users, who are already struggling to cope with year 2000 fixes and enterprise software deployments.

"Over the next five years, none of these proposals would be a problem," says Howard Launstein, corporate controller at Oil Gear Co. in Milwaukee. But right now?

According to an exclusive Computerworld survey of more than 100 IT shops, most of the proposed changes would make corporate IT professionals less likely to buy those new PCs today.

The survey, conducted last month among IT managers and executives at organizations with 500 or more employees, checked out their willingness to purchase PCs with each of the 11 changes proposed by Intel and Microsoft in their PC 99 specification (see survey results box).

The PC 99 changes would rid the desktop PC of many of its most resource-hungry elements -- the ones that gobble up interrupt request lines and direct-memory access channels, making life miserable for IT support teams that must reconfigure users' PCs. And dumping some legacy features would also cut the cost of PCs.

But Intel and Microsoft would prefer to make all those changes at once -- an idea corporate IT shops aren't buying.

What are the changes, and how will they fare with corporate IT? Here's a scorecard for what to really expect in the next generation of PCs:

ISA Elimination

PC vendors say they believe most ISA slots already sit empty. Vendors have been floating the idea of ISA elimination for two or three years, and the replacement, Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI), is already a standard. Corporate IT shops don't disagree. "PCI is faster, better and smaller," says Todd Richter, a PC specialist at Baystate Health System in Springfield, Mass. "It's time to move on." Intel plans to stop supporting ISA slots with its own chip sets next year. Though users like the idea, there’s some concern about the cost and possibility of replacing specialized ISA cards with PCI equivalents.

Quick Power-Up

IT shops don't believe in Santa Claus, easy Y2K fixes or fast boot-ups. They say they think current power-up delays are largely due to network log-ons and operating system loading time, not PC hardware-related delays. They'll believe it when they see it, Launstein says. But if vendors can make it happen, they won't complain.

Remove Parallel Printer Port

Not likely to be a major issue. "I love USB. It just works," says Kalman Shor, director of information systems at Michael Anthony Jewelers Inc. in Mount Vernon, N.Y. New corporate PCs have USB for the few cases in which a local printer is required; most users use networked printers. A USB interface for a parallel printer will likely become an added-cost item.

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Remove Serial Ports

USB-to-serial interface IT shops have a few more concerns about eliminating serial ports rather than printer ports but will accept the change a year from now. New PCs have USB, and serial ports can be added via USB or a PCI add-on card in cases where a special or legacy device requires it.

Remove IDE

Our survey shows users would react favorably to replacing IDE, but interviews suggest there's resistance. USB and FireWire aren’t viewed as appropriate for internal connections to anything, and while SCSI is fast and reliable, SCSI hard drives are currently substantially more expensive than IDE.

But if SCSI drive prices fall and the change is invisible to customers, it may prove acceptable.

Replace VGA

VGA is viewed as only slightly more broken than IDE. In addition, the large existing investment in VGA monitors will discourage migration until those monitors are obsolete -- maybe as long as three years. "There will be a lot of cheap VGA monitors out there for a long time," Richter says. The cost of new flat-panel monitors will drive acceptance of the new video interface; if they're cheap and popular, so long, VGA.

Quieter Fan

A no-brainer -- IT shops simply don't care, except for the fact that the combination fan/power supply is the piece of the current PC architecture most likely to fail catastrophically. "If that was the only noise in the office, I'd worry about it," Launstein says.

Smart-Card Reader

IT shops don't see a need for smart-card readers. For e-commerce? Not from users' desks. For authentication? Most users don't move from PC to PC, at least not today. Until there are useful back-end applications that make the smart card valuable, they will lag. No one objects to a reader as long as it doesn't add much to the PC's cost -- about $10 would be fine, one user says.

Wireless Networking

If you need it, it sounds like a great idea. But most users don't move around that much, and most IT shops don't have much experience with wireless networking. New uses such as PCs velcroed to the bottom of mail carts, will take time to accept. This will remain a niche item.

Replace Ethernet With ATM

IT shops know Ethernet. They like Ethernet. They haven't run out of Ethernet capacity by a long shot. "We don't use 10 percent of our [Ethernet] bandwidth on a normal day," Shor says. And until multimedia or some other innovation chews up huge amounts of bandwidth, they see no reason to switch. An additional barrier is that many offices would require cable upgrades.

Eliminate Floppy

They used to be indispensable for moving files. Now many documents are too large to fit on a single floppy, and users often simply e-mail the files -- even to themselves -- to work on at home. But IT shops still assume the floppy will have to be replaced, not simply eliminated. "I look at my desk here; there are floppies scattered all over it," says David Lewis, acting CIO for the state of Massachusetts in Boston. "What else am I going to use?" Alternatives include zip drives, superdisk drives and other low-cost, high-capacity, portable media.