Should E-Commerce be taxed? Will Wireless live up to its hype? Is the Open Source movement a Communist diversion?
Bob Metcalfe has taken technology punditry to new lengths in his weekly columns on these and other questions of the Internet era. As inventor of the Ethernet, the networking technology that connects 100 million computers worldwide, and founder of the company 3com, Bob Metcalfe is one of those Information Age pioneers who even has a ‘law’ named after him. “Metcalfe’s Law” posits that “the value of a network grows as the square of the number of its users.” If a pundit’s value grows in relation to the accuracy of his predictions, then Metcalfe lost some big points in 1996 when he predicted the Internet would crash in spectacular fashion. When it didn’t, Metcalfe ate his column in front of a live audience.
(Hosted by Christopher Lydon)
Guests:
Bob Metcalfe.