Contributing Editor’s notebook
Intel ups the ante on processor speed in wake of new Apples
By ARTHUR GASCH
Healthcare InfoTech Contributing Editor
Now that the 333 MHz. Apple computers are out, claiming to execute programs two to four times faster than the 450 MHz. Pentium IIs from Intel (the world’s largest chip manufacturer), it was only a matter of time before Intel would be expected to respond. It didn’t take long. Intel announced to the press that its latest CPU in the labs, although substantially different from the current Pentium Pro architecture, has been christened the "Pentium III" series, and will be deliverable around the end of 1999.
These new CPUs provide a superset of the Pentium II instruction set, including dozens of new instructions. More importantly, these chips operate at clock speeds of 500 and 600 MHz., and have the ability to send their own unique ID code, a digital serial number, when queried. This is the default capability, which the user can switch off, but it is automatically re-enabled when the PC is rebooted. This will make the chips very attractive to the medical application community, as it is a major aid in identifying with whom someone is talking over a network. It also will be helpful for tech support issues.
Tracking remote users now depends on "cookies" that are left behind, but with digital IDs, the data on users would be much more specific. On the other hand, such features could be exploited to track users of the net, which some claim is an invasion of privacy.
Presumably with the Pentium III chips being sampled this year, we can expect to see workstations with these in place in 2000. This fact should be taken into account by healthcare enterprises looking to implement enterprise-wide, hardware platforms. Those who are still investing in Pentium CPUs, even the 233 MHz flavor or lessor CPUs, may be just investing in premature obsolescence.
To help obsolescence along, Intel and AMD have dropped their prices on lower-end CPUs, like the Celeron, which are now about $80. We hear unofficially, of course that Celeron chips can be connected in dual-processor motherboards, to create some cheap, high-powered processing machines, but that would not be a warrantied use of the chip.
Internet bottleneck in enterprise-wide computing
As the healthcare providers move more to the Internet to connect themselves into a network, the access speed on the net becomes more of an issue. While a 56K modem may be adequate for consumers to access their favorite webs, it can be too slow for medical access in a busy doctor’s office, particularly if a lot of data has to be retrieved about the patient.
The regional phone companies have offered ISDN, but that only doubles the throughput, and can be very expensive. Dedicated T1 and T3 lines or frame relay is really expensive, and not needed all the time. Dial-up, on-demand access is a solution, but not available everywhere, and still quite expensive.
What is needed is a flat-fee, higher-speed access and that is just what cable modems offer. Ranging in cost from $49 to $99 per month, these devices provide 1,500 kbaud access to the Internet, or 20+ times the speed for about three times the monthly access fee. As a result of this value, revenues from cable modem access grew 60% in 1998 alone, according to data published by the Cahners In-Stat Group, and is expected to grow by 120% in 2000. Revenues are expected to reach $800 million by 2003. The current installed base is about 1 million units, but most cable companies report that less than 10% of their subscribers order these units, so there is ample room for the market to grow. One large cable provider, @Home, reported that its cable modem subscriber base has grown from 50,000 units to 330,000 units in the past year.
Cable modems hit the sweet spot in the market, providing an optimal mix of affordable cost and high-speed access to the net for the medical (physicians’ office) user. We believe they have a critical role to play in connecting the more remote sites of the sprawling healthcare enterprise. Connecting customer installations to vendor service centers is another use of cable modems, which allows vendors to "look in on" the operation of their products at customer sites. These also can make software update downloads to customers fast and transparent to users.
Here comes Jini
Creating a working network using Microsoft Windows and NT server, while not rocket science, may still be a bit frustrating and beyond average business users, who have no real interest in learning the details of TCP-IP, RCP, or even LSMFT in order to get their workstation connected and running on a network. Sun Microsystems has realized that, and created Jini, a technology that will make hopping onto a network as easy as plugging in an extension telephone.
After lots of hoopla, it appears Sun Microsystems is ready to go. At a press conference this past Monday, the company announced that its 35 partners including such well-known names as Hewlett-Packard, Seagate and Philips will begin embedding Jini in their products. By later this year, configuring and connecting network devices will become accomplishments that even senior executives who have few clues as to how to use the PCs on their desks can accomplish without calling in the IT department.
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