Selling powerful laptops and PCs for business will become the low-margin operation that needs to be supported by fat server profits, with many companies jettisoning their personal computer subsidiaries altogether. Growth in the low-margin business PC and laptop operation will start to slow as well. The buzz in the past few weeks has suggested that a x486 system that can run basic applications and be networked into a LAN or WAN environment is optimal for most business uses and is not just vapor. Business will only require old-school PCs in order to serve as points on networks and all eyes will turn to servers. Even though the consumer market will ultimately require different design requirements that will turn them into appliances, these as well will still require some more sophisticated computing device to connect to, in order to access content and information.
Enterprise computing is all about the network, which revolves almost completely around the server.
This is why Compaq purchased Networth and has gotten aggressive in the networking equipment market with the intention of being one of the top three names in connectivity equipment by the end of the decade. Compaq, Apple Computer and Hewlett Packard all have entries here. Minicomputers and mainframes originally designed to handle massive computing tasks can also function as servers, with old-line companies like IBM and Digital Equipment gaining the most benefit here. Beyond servers and network terminals, enterprise computing becomes a miasma of clusters. Small niches for very sophisticated machines will evolve into a few close competitors who share in the overall growth of the category, with one player occasionally benefiting when another stumbles.