No technology conference would be complete without a flashy presentation of the future, preferably featuring a smiling family immersed in a world of limitless digital content available at their fingertips.
This week's Intel Developer Conference, which wrapped up Thursday in San Francisco, was no exception. In the future -- a period generally defined as somewhere between the fourth quarter of 2006 and the next 10 years -- we will sit in our living rooms watching films as they premiere at local theaters, carry on video conferences across the globe and chat using VOIP services.
If Intel's view of the future looks bright for consumers, however, it might seem downright blinding for some of the industries that stand to see their businesses upended by the new technologies it is endorsing -- namely telephone and cable television companies, and possibly Hollywood.
Much of the vision Intel demonstrated this week is predicated on an assumption that wireless internet networks will eventually be ubiquitous and ultra-fast, enabled by a technology called WiMax that allows for citywide broadband networks. Instead of the services we use today for voice and video, we'll turn to wideband audio and new systems for transmitting movies online.
Intel's disruptive bets go beyond wireless technology. This week, the company took a stake in internet phone phenomenon Skype, which has seen some 150 million customers download its software for making free calls anywhere in the world.
Such advancements would inevitably provide a boon to makers of home-theater systems and providers of next-generation voice-over-IP services. By the same token, analysts attending Intel's confab this week observed that technologies touted by the world's largest chipmaker -- in particular WiMax -- are also classic examples of disruptive technologies.
Taken together, these sorts of initiatives could put Intel's long-term business plans at cross-purposes with industry giants less eager to abandon the status quo, some analysts believe.
"Their dedication to the use of WiMax for the delivery of high-quality content is an interesting shift," said Andy Castonguay, senior analyst with the Yankee Group. "Essentially what that's going to do is really drive a number of competitive delivery models in a way that could potentially shake up a number of industries here in the U.S. and potentially overseas."
It wouldn't be the first time tensions have erupted between Silicon Valley and industries threatened by massive and abrupt technological change. Just three years ago, a lobbying battle swept Congress over standards to protect copyright holders, with the technology industry locking arms to prevent the passage of laws that would dictate broad requirements for hardware specifications, effectively set by the entertainment industry.
Chalk it up to the power of disruptive technology, a term initially coined by Harvard Business School professor Clay Christensen to describe innovations that eventually overturn other dominant technologies. Examples of disruptive innovations in recent years abound, ranging from digital photography, which clobbered the traditional film industry, to peer-to-peer file trading, which inspired the music industry to experiment with online distribution (and also to file hundreds of lawsuits against file traders).
WiMax, which uses unlicensed spectrum and a network of antennas to deliver high-speed wireless service over a radius of several miles, is among the leading up-and-coming disrupters. The technology is not in widespread use, but it may be soon.
According to Intel, slightly more than 100 trials are currently under way across the globe, spanning Northern India to Argentina. In the United States, several cities, including Philadelphia and San Francisco, are looking at deploying wireless broadband within their borders.
But while citywide wireless broadband sounds enticing to laptop owners, phone and cable companies that have invested heavily in providing high-speed internet over wired networks have reason to take a dim view. Add in the competitive threat of other services, such as high-quality, or "wideband," VOIP and direct-to-PC movies, and a broad range of industries could be vulnerable.
"(WiMax) could also be a direct threat to the movie theater industry, the DVD industry and any number of content-delivery platforms that exist out there," said Castonguay. "That's something that's probably going to be very contentious."
Manny Vara, technology strategist for Intel's research and development labs, said WiMax's disruptive potential depends on one's perspective.
"It could be seen as a threat by the telecommunications companies ... but they could also take advantage of WiMax," he said. Phone companies, for example, could use the technology to extend broadband service to neighborhoods not currently wired for DSL.
Castonguay estimates that it will be close to two years before rollouts of WiMax are likely to occur on a wide scale.
Even then, it's unlikely that wireless broadband networks built to today's standards would be fast enough to support Intel's rosy vision of the home of the future, said Joseph Byrne, senior analyst with the Linley Group. High-definition video, in particular, Byrne said, would be "exceedingly difficult" to deliver over today's WiMax networks.
