McNealy: The technology under development by InfraSearch is a fully distributed, peer-to-peer search engine that has the ability to return richer and more timely content on the Internet. We already have a P-to-P research project called JXTA, and this acquisition should strengthen and accelerate that. I'm a total believer that peer-to-peer is going to change the way we work and play. It's going to change the balance of power between consumers, service providers, and businesses. This is radical stuff. Keep in mind, though, that not every application lends itself to a peer-to-peer model. Many will continue to use the traditional server back end.

AW: When do you see your vision of a ubiquitous Net becoming a daily reality for a majority of executives in the U.S. and Europe and what will that be like?
McNealy: You can get Internet access in most airports and business-class hotels today. Cars will be Web browsers with wheels. In fact, Detroit sees online services as a bigger revenue generator than the cars themselves. Then there's all the mobile phones, pagers, and PDAs out there. The Net is nearly ubiquitous now, and all the different points of access have the potential to make our lives much easier.

Here's an example: Say I get a message telling me my next meeting has been delayed. A smart Web service would recognize from my online calendar that the delay makes it impossible for me to make my dinner reservation, so it would auto-matically tap into my online reservations service and change the reservation for me. But let's say it finds the restaurant can't accommodate me at a later time. Well, this is a smart service. It finds another restaurant - similar in location, style, and price - and makes a new reservation. Then it updates my calendar and notifies me via my pager. That's not just smart, it's incredibly handy.

AW: Will we still have laptops in 10 years? What will be the biggest surprises?