LAN Turns 30, May Not See 40?

dratcw writes "The first commercial LAN was based on ARCnet technology and was installed some 30 years ago, according to a ComputerWorld article. Bob Metcalfe, one of the co-inventors of Ethernet, recalls the early battles between the different flavors of LAN and says some claims from the Token Ring backers such as IBM were lies. 'I know that sounds nasty, but for 10 years I had to put up with that crap from the IBM Token Ring people — you bet I'm bitter.' Besides dipping into networking nostalgia, the article also quotes an analyst who says the LAN may be nearing its demise and predicts that all machines will be individually connected to one huge WAN at gigabit speeds. Could the LAN actually be nearing the end of its lifecycle?"

Comments

WAN, SCHMAN

[Moryath]

Anyone who thinks that wireless everything is the wave of the future has never considered the simple phrase "electromagnetic interference."

Imagine you and your closest 35 neighbors in an apartment complex, all wanted to use one of the 11 available 802.11 channels for your routers... at once...

Re:As long as the need for a secure network exists

[scottme]

Actually most IBM offices do have WLAN access to their intranet, but with authentication and strong encryption (EAP-TLS).

Re:Yeah but...

[Nimey]

Bastard!