Worth revisiting

As technology developments come along faster and more frequently, those who work in technology-related industries have a greater requirement to be able to quickly gauge the potential of each new offering and summarize it in one or two sentences.

With information overload threatening at every turn, the ability to provide a brief, convincing and coherent "thumbs up," "thumbs down" or "it'll have its day when..." is a talent in high demand. If a person is really good at providing the technologist's version of Cliffs Notes, others often will parrot what he or she has said, sometimes remembering only which way the thumb was pointing and not the reason why.

This makes it all the more important to revisit such judgment calls periodically. Plenty of companies have lost market share by failing to respond promptly to outside innovation. Nine times out of 10, these companies were relying on old information-too seldom revisited-that a technology was "too expensive" or of "poor quality." Or-and here's the part that's most difficult to keep tabs on-because external changes opened up new applications and new opportunities.

One technology that bears revisiting is smart cards. According to the conventional Cliffs Notes, these debit cards with embedded chips are popular in Europe, but Americans like to use credit cards. This judgment overlooks the fact that smart cards also can store secured information about the user. Ultimately, that capability could solve a lot of problems for travelers wanting an easy way to access the Internet or other computer networks. Imagine a public or hotel-based kiosk that accepts input from a smart card and connect the user to the Internet through an interface that includes all the user's preferred settings and programs. Travelers could leave their laptops behind-and companies might not even have to supply them.

Smart card access could be useful anywhere multiple users share a computer such as a college or K-12 computer lab. And for companies that offer part-time telecommuting programs, several employees could share the same computer when they do trek in to headquarters-Sam gets it Tuesdays, Carol gets it Wednesdays, etc.

Let's revise the smart card Cliffs Notes. Managing smart card-enabled networks could be a significant opportunity for service providers-if they get someone to build the right interface.