Killer App? Fuhgeddahboudit!
Alexander E. Braun, Senior Editor -- Semiconductor International, 9/1/2001
For an industry that prides itself on its rational engineers and technologists, we seem to spend an inordinate amount of time — just like Dorothy and her friends — searching for the wonderful Wizard of Oz and ignoring the man behind the curtain. We're going through one of our history's worst downturns and, astonishingly enough, despite experience, one still hears talk about the breathtaking "killer app" that will pull us out of the slump.
Let us review: In 1993, the industry was going to skyrocket on the 500 channels of entertainment and communications that Time Warner and Silicon Graphics introduced. Then, lo and behold, consumers did not line up to pay thousands of dollars for a workstation TV set just to watch niche channels and make videophone calls. Slumpsville!
Then came the commercial Internet, practical cellphones, dot-coms and 3G, and everything — data, images, news, e-mail, video, Web surfing — was going to be mobile ... never mind that there would be no wireless networks capable of providing the pipeline to do all of this until 2008 or so. Amazingly enough, consumers were hesitant to plunk down more than 200 slugs for a handset, plus monthly charges for a service that dripped information at a molasses-like 64 Kb/sec. Reality then caught up to the dot-coms, and 3G got bogged down, and the world will probably not gear up for it for another two or more years. Nosedive!
The nature of our industry is such that, because of the way it reacts to supply and demand, it will always be subject to cycles. However, unrealistic expectations exacerbate them, resulting in panic layoffs (regardless of alleged engineering shortages) and an anxious waiting period to see which big player sticks his nose out of the bunker first.
The reality is that there is no killer app, and our lemming-like rush in the quest for this glamorous Grail blinds us to opportunities around us. From the time we decided that the PC is dead and that new industry drivers are needed, it seems like the downturn sine wave has grown deeper, while the amplitude has gotten smaller.
We have written the PC's obituary, although only about half the homes in the United States (even less around the world) have one. If the PC is dead, what has replaced it? Certainly not a hard-to-read wireless PDA that takes more than two minutes to download the local weather report!
Manufacturers are now looking with envy at Japan's i-Mode offerings, which enable teenagers to play games on their cellphones and watch cartoons using MPEG-4. AT&T is committed to deploying i-Mode technology in 13 markets by 2002. Watching a jerky grayscale Wiley Coyote chasing the Roadrunner may appeal to some, but it is a poor structure upon which to base an industry and ignores lifestyle and bandwidth realities.
Perhaps the news of the PC's demise was exaggerated. Because it still is the best portal to the Internet — and is likely to remain so for at least five or six years — why not continue to build and innovate on it? Getting on-line and navigating toward your destination is still a somewhat clunky undertaking, even with broadband. Possibly this is one of the reasons why DSL adoption is proceeding more slowly than projected. Some novel silicon (or copper) and original PC software could simplify, improve and spur growth in that whole sector, creating demand. This would help sustain us until the necessary frequency allocations and wireless infrastructure are in place for the more exotic, PDA-type and other semiconductor-rich applications to become practical.
Once upon a time there was a killer app during an era when little else existed. Its name was VisiCalc. But now?
Fuhgeddahboudit!
