By Rachel Chalmers
To the strains of Intel’s Born to be Wired rock video, Internet World in Los Angeles has kicked into high gear. Somewhere out there is a bullet with your company’s name on it, the video warned, unless you’re the bullet. Intel VP Sean Maloney, who took the stage for the first keynote, reminded the audience that a lot has happened in the five years since this show was first held. It’s not even five years since OJ tried to cross the border in his white Bronco, he pointed out.
It was an appropriate image. If the OJ case coverage preyed on popular envy and fear, so does the latest round of internet marketing. Intel’s video was all about generating fear of your net-based competitors and envy of the spectacular financial successes engendered by the web so far. Yet Maloney says there are three things wrong with the web. Before it can become the perfect business tool (and possibly make us rich, or possibly not), it needs better information management, better infrastructure and more ubiquitous access.
As far as information management is concerned, Maloney pointed to the twin problems of info-glut and the difficulty of searching for information on the web. The first problem needs to be addressed with better filters, he said, while as a solution to the second he demonstrated Excite Extreme, a 3D interface for search results. This technology particularly suits Intel, because it’s very computationally intensive, Maloney admitted. But surely adding an extra dimension to an information display just increases the Complexity of interpreting that information? Spatial interfaces are not yet well understood, as the VRML industry found to its cost. Intel, however, just loves it when things get complicated and require more and more powerful chips. It could be argued that the company is one of the biggest generators of complexity in computing.
To be fair, this power is sometimes used to simplify things for users. Maloney demonstrated Intel’s English Wizard, a natural language interface for SQL databases which handles voice recognition as well. Say: Computer, give me a pie chart showing sales by category, and your Pentium PC will oblige. In order to survive, however, Intel must sell chips, and these days that means selling appliances to consumers and e-commerce servers to businesses – whether they need them or not. By better infrastructure, Maloney means multiprocessor servers, and by ubiquity of access he means an Intel PC in every room. The trouble is that in selling the idea of e-commerce, the company is selling some of its own sales techniques, as when Maloney played the Pentium jingle to highlight the uses of audio. To the audience’s groans, he said Yes, but it’s very effective at installing a memory. The unfortunate effect of drawing attention to Intel’s highly successful marketing strategies may be to expose them for the cynical manipulations of fear and envy that they so often are.
