online storefronts | dark fiber | high-tech services | United States

It's not about selling perfume online. It's about using the Net to improve operations inside and outside your company - all through the value chain - and the world is still in the early stages of that process.

AW: What factors will affect global business over the next five years?
McNealy: We've been saying for years that the Net is about much more than opening online storefronts. It represents a more cost-effective way to run nearly every aspect of the enterprise - inventory, billing, distribution, customer service, employee communications. That goes for the whole supply chain as well. Most companies get that now. They're interested in using the Net to save money and work more efficiently.

AW: What's your prediction for how bandwidth [the ability to download data at high speeds] will increase in the U.S. and the rest of the world, since this is critical to delivering so many next-generation high-tech services? Are we facing a crisis?
McNealy: Over the past three years, bandwidth has doubled about every nine months. Compare that to processor speed, which doubles about every 24 months, and it's pretty clear that bandwidth is not going to be a problem. A single fiber-optic strand can carry the equivalent of 400,000 DVD-quality movies streaming down the line simultaneously, and there may be 800 or more strands in a cable.

So when are we going to see all that capacity put to use? Already about 85 percent of all commercial buildings in the United States are within a mile of dark fiber - fiber that has been installed but is not being used, is not lit up. It's that last mile that has been the sticking point so far, but there are ways around the problem. Fixed wireless, for instance, can deliver about 100 megabits per second to any home or office within range of a relay station, significantly reducing last-mile costs.