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1998 Summary and 1999 Predictions

Toronto Star Fast Forward column for Jan 7/99

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© Copyright, Myles White, 1999

If we can safely sum up 1998 as "eventful," then 1999 will fit just as neatly under another category: "You ain't seen nothin' yet."

By far the top news of the past year for the computer industry has been the ongoing struggle between Microsoft and the pack of hounds determined to bring the software behemoth to its knees. It has to be at the top of US president, Bill Clinton's gratitude list that he's not Bill Gates and only had Kenneth Starr and the Republican Party after him. In the Win Some, Lose Some ledger, Microsoft was able to ship Windows 98 complete with Internet Explorer 4, but lost the first battle in the war over Java with Sun Microsystems. Although Microsoft has appealed the ruling, the company is now shipping a version of the Java code that adheres strictly to Sun's model, without enhancements specifically for Windows. In the meantime, arch-rival Netscape Communications committed corporate harikari and broke itself up, selling its browser technology to America Online and its back-office server technology (where the money is), to Sun.

On the product side of the ledger, movement was slow in the software arena while the industry held its collective breath waiting for Windows 98. You'll see a glut of new products within the next few months as a result, not to mention new cries of dismay when the first service release of bug fixes and enhancements appear early this year. (Will it be bug-free? You jest.).

Windows NT 5.0 didn't appear in 1998 as anticipated a year ago - and it won't ever appear. Late in the year, Microsoft announced that Windows NT had been renamed to Windows 2000. The workstation version will be named Windows 2000 Professional to distinguish it from the next release of the Windows 9x stream, which will merely be called Windows 2000 (without any additional titling). This was done, said a Microsoft representative, to alleviate consumer confusion over which product to buy (honest!). The new Windows for consumers, due for release sometime in the future, will also be built upon the Windows NT core.

Other embarrassing moments of the year belong primarily to Symantec. Caught with its code exposed, the company was forced to stop selling Norton Uninstall after Network Associates (an amalgam of MacAfee, Cybermedia and others) successfully sued, claiming that some of its Uninstaller code was to be found where it shouldn't be. Symantec was also caught looking silly when WinFax Pro 9.0 stopped working properly after the Daylight Savings Time change this fall. Without a patch file, the program stopped printing and mis-dated outgoing files as soon as clocks fell back an hour (sheesh!).

Peripheral development was also held up waiting for Win98, but soon after its debut, a flood of new devices arrived with Universal Serial Bus (USB) connectivity sparking the most interest. New USB products included add-in boards to upgrade older non-USB capable computers, printers, external storage devices, scanners, joysticks, digital cameras (and the list keeps growing).

Nothing slowed development on the processor front. 1998 saw the disappearance of Intel's Pentium MMX processor as it joined the classic Pentium, 486, 386, and earlier PC processors in the history books. Intel discontinued manufacturing new Pentium MMX wafers and announced it would provide no more out of inventory past the end of December.

We saw the debut of 100 MHz motherboards for Pentium II processors of 350 to 450 MHz as well as Intel's 440BX chipset to support them. Intel also released 300 MHz mobile Pentium II processors, which quickly became the standard high end in the notebook market.

1998 also confirmed Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) as Intel's chief competitor in the PC processing arena. The company's K6-2 processor, with "3D Now" multimedia instruction set provided Intel with real performance competition and distinct pricing competition. Now available at speeds up to 400 MHz, the K6-2 became a viable alternative for many consumers.

'98 also foreshadowed, I believe, Cyrix's eventual disappearance from the mainstream processor competition as both IBM and Compaq, two of the company's name-brand supporters, switched to AMD alternatives (except in some of the companies' lowest end products). AMD achieved a bit of coup by adding Hewlett Packard to its list of branded suppliers.

Intel's response to AMD was, at first, weak. Its attempt to play in the low-cost market fell with a dull thud as its first 266 and 300 MHz Celeron models, stripped-down Pentium II processors lacking integrated level 2 cache support, proved to be woefully underpowered. Intel gained a little back with a subsequent release of two new Celerons, the 300A and 333 MHz models with 128 KB L2 cache, but as you'll see below, that may have been too little, too late.

Exciting prospects

1999 will be somewhat more exciting than 1998. While the outcome is far from certain, there will be some resolution and orders stemming from Microsoft's ongoing court battles.

Microsoft, Corel and Lotus will release new versions of their office suites. Hopefully, Symantec will take the year off to overhaul its entire program line to quell the growing chorus of complaints about problems with a number of its products. You can also expect breakthroughs in the continuous speech recognition front as IBM releases an updated ViaVoice and Dragon Systems does something to try to catch up.

You are going to hear much, much more about Linux, the free UNIX variant that is worrying Microsoft.

USB devices will continue to appear, as will high-bandwidth devices using FireWire (also supported now under Windows 98).

However, the biggest news will come on the processor/chipset fronts. Here's a partial list of PC processors due for release in 1999 (and their approximate order). Early in the first quarter, we'll see a new Celeron from Intel, at higher speeds, but abandoning its Slot 1 connector. The new generation of Celeron processors will use a less-expensive, 370-pin socket that isn't compatible with anything else.

AMD will counter with the K6-3, formerly code-named "Sharptooth." Like the K6-2, it will use the Pentium's "Socket 7" connector and provide the "3D Now" instruction set, but will have an on-die 256 KB, level 2 cache module. Kiss the Celeron goodbye.

At the mainstream desktop level, Intel has announced two new Pentium II variants. "Katmai" is a new consumer processor with 70 new multimedia instructions (the Katmai New Instructions or KNI. Think of it as MMX-2). "Tanner" is a new corporate processor in the Xeon line. It will, like earlier Xeons, use the Slot 2 connector, but will contain the KNI instruction set.

Later in the year, Intel will introduce a series of processors currently code-named "Coppermine." Using a new 0.18 micron manufacturing process, the Coppermine processors will start at 500 MHz and eventually include a mobile version as well. The company will follow up with a 32-bit version of Merced, using Slot "M," in order to give corporate purchasers an upgrade path to the 64-bit version of the processor that still isn't expected to debut before 2000.

AMD, however, will kick the processor wars into a new level late in the first half of the year with the introduction of the K7. According to the company's published reports, the new processor will abandon Socket 7 in favour of the Digital Alpha Slot A, contain up to 8 MB of Level 2 cache, run on 200 MHz motherboards and debut at over 500 MHz.

Also coming in 1999 will be new Pentium II chipsets, supporting faster Accelerated Graphics Ports (AGP 4X), a new, higher-speed hard drive standard (up to 66 MB/sec throughput) dubbed Ultra DMA/66, and new forms of memory, such as Rambus Systems' RDRAM.

Last, but not least, we come to prices. While I expect the prices for existing products to drop (they always do), I also expect to see overall prices come down in 1999 as they did in 1998. Everything you want will be less expensive (and that's the good news). However, in order to achieve these price cuts, everything will be cheaper, too. You can expect to see flimsier materials, fewer features, slight drops in performance and similar items appear.

You'll also be shopping for them slightly differently. According to all predictions in both the US and Canada, Internet shopping is expected to increase dramatically in 1999 - and one reference to the practice in a recent news report raised an interesting issue.

The young man featured in one small segment proudly proclaimed he'd been able to locate a product in the US he hadn't been able to find in Canada. That's good, so far as it goes, but here comes the potential pincher. It's common for Canadian-based branches and wholly owned Canadian versions of international companies to pick and choose the models they sell. Hewlett Packard Canada and Toshiba Canada come most readily to mind, but other name-brand suppliers also choose not to carry products that may be available elsewhere. They also have a habit of not honouring warranties for products they don't sell. This applies both to full computer systems and peripheral devices (such as printers).

The caution is this: pay no attention to assurances you receive from the on-line seller that the warranty will be honoured in Canada. The seller may even believe it - but you shouldn't, unless and until you've checked with the Canadian company to be certain.

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