Edward Henning suggests that the Internet has more potential to hinder the educational process than to help it.

One of the most positive trends in the PC market in the last couple of years has been that people have started to question the way in which we actually use PCs. The whole discussion over total cost of ownership, the interest in Java and the Network Computer, plus the current lull in PC purchases all point to the fact that a questioning of the uses of this technology is replacing an acceptance of the latest gee-whizz factor, whatever it might be.

Regarding the lull in PC purchases, the most common reason I've heard for this--both in Europe and the US--is that end users are confused about the diversity of the latest technologies, primarily processors. See, it's all the fault of AMD and Cyrix. This is the first time I've heard of increased competition being blamed for slowing a market down.

Maybe there's some truth in this theory, but if users are confused it's more likely to be about why to buy, rather than what.

This confusion is most evident among PC manufacturers. In recent months quite a few have asked our views on how different products should be positioned, particularly with regard to the business market.

The most common problem there is that most modern advances in hardware technology are of potentially greatest benefit to the domestic user. So, how should they be pitched to business users? An Intel executive asked me recently what I thought was the next killer business application--he had no real suggestion to offer, other than an unspoken but obvious prayer that whatever it was, please let it use video.

The days of the PC as a single device of the same value to any user are fading fast, and now the issue is to find the technology that's appropriate in a given situation.

A good example is to compare games that have recently been ported over from consoles onto the PC. Take a PC with the latest processor and best 3D accelerating graphics adapter, and very often the latest console--I'm thinking of the Nintendo--does a better job. When one device costs nearly 10 times as much as the other it makes me wonder why PC manufacturers don't take the modular approach of the console to crack the home market.

The operating system is almost certainly the obstacle there. Does the Nintendo 64 even have an operating system? I don't know, but if it does it certainly doesn't take expensive resources to run it, or gratuitously get in the user's way.

This is, of course, one of the problems that the Network Computer seeks to address. I'm not convinced that the NC and Java are the best answer, but at least they're a step in the direction of greater simplicity and a more focused use of technology. In so many instances, much of the bloatware that comes on PCs is an appropriate use of technology.

I recently had a conversation with a US specialist who works very closely on the software/hardware interface for some of the largest companies in this business. His most interesting way of describing the gross inefficiency of modern software was this. He claimed that if hardware stopped advancing today, and that today's fastest processor remained the fastest for many years to come, then for 10 to 15 years we would still see improvements in performance as software engineers got down to the business of actually writing efficient and high-quality code.

But matching and developing hardware and software appropriately isn't the only issue. The other major factor is the actual uses to which we put PCs. There's one subject that seems to be discussed more and more in public--that schools need PCs and need to be on the Internet.

On the first of those I agree totally with Intel's Andy Grove. His view is that PCs have only one place in a school, and that's to help with education about computing. He considers a PC as an instrument of teaching in itself to be wholly inappropriate and, I assume, potentially damaging.

I couldn't agree more, although there are reasons why places like a physics lab could use a PC--for analysing data, for example. But the Internet in schools? There are many businesses that simply refuse to allow Internet access in their offices, simply because of the potential for distraction. Sure, there are many jobs that entail information gathering, and for them the Internet is a valuable resource.

But the use of the words 'surf' and 'browse' illustrate clearly that it's so easy to find a great variety of information on the Internet. Part of the attraction is that you can find things that you wouldn't even have thought of looking for. Just a few days ago I was researching some topic and found some references that were totally unrelated to my topic, but that really interested me. After half an hour I realised I'd fallen into just the trap I criticise so often.

Giving people who don't need it access to the Internet is like dropping a huge pile of varied and interesting books and magazines on their desks. Would any employer really consider doing that?

If I were still a teacher I would probably take an axe to any Internet-attached PC that showed up in my classroom.

Edward Henning.