INTERVIEW:
Question 1
What is the global network of IBM and how does it work?
Answer
The IBM global network is a world-wide intelligent network. It allows businesses - large
businesses, small business or individuals - to have access to any information or to any
individual around the world. For example, I am travelling now and at my hotel I can
connect into the ITM, the IBM Global Network, and get the latest messages, whether they
were voice or fax or electronic message. So it allows me to stay in touch with businesses,
with business associates, with my office, as I am travelling or to have access from my
home when I get home. That is the overall structure that is being put in place and we are
moving very rapidly towards making it available in every country, first to business and
then eventually, working with the various PTTs, to everybody's home.
Question 2
This possibility is also on the Internet, so what is the difference between the global
network and Internet and what are the relations between the two?
Answer
That is a very good question. As part of the IBM global network we do connect into the
Internet and so you have access through the global network to all of the facilities on the
Internet. But in addition we are providing services on the IBM global network. For
example, if messages come to you as voice messages, the voice message could be stored. Or
someone may want to fax information. The network has the intelligence to know that these
different types of media are for the same individual and when that individual accesses the
network, whether from their home or their office or when they are travelling, it pulls all
the information together and presents it to you. For example, if you only have access
where you are travelling to a telephone, it could take text information that was sent to
you and run it through a process and play it back to you as a voice message, so something
that was sent as text could be provided as voice. That is what we mean by having some
compute power in the network or intelligent services in the network. That is an example of
the benefits it can provide.
Question 3
Do you think that now the level of technology can combine different ways of transmission
like satellite and waves and cables while being easily able to switch from one network to
another network with different technologies?
Answer
The technology providers and the service providers, the PTTs, have the capability to
switch between wireless, cellular or satellite networks, but if we are very successful in
doing our job, for the end-users that will all be transparent. You won't have to worry
about whether you're on a wireless connection or satellite connection; that technology has
been integrated for you, the customer, and so you just receive the benefits and the
services and you let the various vendors like IBM or the service providers - let them
worry about all the technology and how to integrate it.
Question 4
Do you think it is necessary to have specific plans for information highways? Will
government have to decide, or will it be the market that builds the information highways?
Answer
I am sure it will be different in all different parts of the world, but I believe the
fastest way that for it to happen is by competition, as the PTTs and telephone companies
around the world are privatised and there are alternate suppliers. Competition is the
healthiest thing in the world to move services ahead, and so I believe that there will be
competition for each individual home. We want to provide the best service so you will
subscribe to our service because I have the best information, it's readily available to
you and I can connect you to anybody in the world. So competition will be the healthy and,
therefore, I think that it will be less of something that the government would want to be
involved in.
Question 5
What are the real new advantages deriving from this technology of communication?
Answer
I would like to purchase something, for example, a new suit. From my home I can determine
the type of suit that I want and I can look in various catalogues to see who has the type
I want, who has the best price, who has the colours that I want, who can deliver it in two
days if I need it to go on a trip or who can deliver it in two weeks. From my home or from
my office I will be able to shop not only in my city but a city 50 kms away or a continent
away if I want. So the whole world has been opened up to me. That's an example that all of
us will have available to us.
Question 6
And if a woman with a child, for example, would like to study from home is tele-education
possible?
Answer
Education will certainly be possible. One of the demonstrations we have downstairs is a
medical education, distance learning. I think it is of a dentist and is being transmitted
from 30-40 kms away from the university. If the child naps from noon to 2 o'clock in the
afternoon, and that's when you would like to take this course, you can do it then. If you
want to do it at 10 o'clock at night when the children are in bed, you can.It is really
education on demand, the demand of the student, not the demand of the university. There
are an endless number of benefits that are going to come to each of us as individuals.
Question 7
But all of this will be possible only with fibre optics, so do we have to wait for fibre
optics or not?
Answer
There are three different ways that it is being worked, but basically there will be fibre
optics within the major telephone companies, and service providers will have fibre optics
within the area. There are a variety of solutions for how they get to your home, the last
mile. Some people are experimenting with using the telephone wires that come to your home.
Long-term, 5, 10, 15, 20 years there will be fibre optics to almost every home, and some
cities and communities are doing that, but even with just the telephone wires to your
home, the possibilities are still there. The technology will allow it.
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