The science of appliances

1999-06-07

You heard it here first - the up-and-coming buzzword is “appliance”. So what is it? A variety of sources seem to claim the term for their own – even in their relatively closed community, storage manufacturers differ in the use of the term, ranging from single-function filer to fully-fledged messaging server. Recent estimates suggest that sales of “information appliances” will outstrip PC sales by 2003. Pretty interesting, considering that a definition for the term is, to say the least, vague.

To better understand what is going on, it is worth looking from the two viewpoints that manufacturers seem to have adopted. First off are the systems manufacturers, who are used to seeing large metal cabinets which often contain whirring motors and fans. From this perspective, the appliance is seen to possess the characteristics of a washing machine – large, white, floor-mounted, single function, easy to program. The second viewpoint is that of the handheld device manufacturer. To these companies, appliances are very small, ergonomic and multifunctional, looking much like a mobile phone.

At the end of the day, it’s all semantics – one person’s appliance is another’s device. All so-called appliances of the future should possess certain characteristics to distinguish them from the systems of the past. They should be as low-maintenance as a fridge, as appropriately designed as a magimix, as easy to use as a phone and as easy to replace as a digital watch. We shouldn’t care what’s going on inside the box, what operating system is being run or what the processor bus speed is. Wishful thinking? Well, we’ll just have to see.

(First published 7 June 1999)