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Seamless Computing Microsoft and Bill Gates – plus Seamless Lawyering and Seamless Blogging

The Future: Seamless Computing

ZDNet just ran a story in German about Microsoft’s Bill Gates and his new vision of “seamless computing” which was recently reported in English e.g. at the Guardian Unlimited and first presented by Bill Gates in November, 2003 as a concept at the 2003 Comdex in Las Vegas. The Microsoft website writes, quoting Bill Gates:

“Gates said the next great opportunity for the technology industry is to create software that breaks down the barriers between people, systems and information. Gates described this technology vision as Seamless Computing, and to realize it, Gates says the industry must deliver key software breakthroughs that create a platform and standards to allow digital information and systems to more easily work together.[emphasis added]

In this decade, we’re engaged on delivering the final level of infrastructure, which is a software connecting infrastructure that connects all your different information together, that lets you work in a very natural way, connects you up to your speech, and your ink, and your photos, all those natural things. And so we talk about this as Seamless Computing, the idea that we, through advanced software, will be able to eliminate those things.”

The word “seamless” appears to be “in”. Indeed, the LawPundit blawg with its tagline “The Law is a Seamless Web” was founded on October 1, 2003. Is this one of those cases of collective consciousness or have the Microsofties been reading this blawg?

We are of course just kidding about that.

The Origin of the Term: Seamless Computing

Although “Seamless Computing” may become a “Microspeak” phrase of choice for the coming decade, as Mary Jo Foley suggests in her November 21, 2003 Microsoft-Watch article on On ‘Seamless Computing’ and Other Microspeak,

“[t]here are early public references to the term from Microsoft nemesis The Object Management Group.”

As written at ENT News:

“Gates proclaimed the decade the era of ‘Seamless Computing.’ It’s a term that students of history will remember was originally adopted by the Object Management Group in the mid- to late-’90s to describe its work in developing CORBA; Microsoft wasn’t among the 700 or so companies that formed the OMG consortium.”

The earliest article online we could find about “seamless computing” is The Seamless Computing Environment, a paper by Timothy J. Sheehan (Oak Ridge National Lab), Robert Pennington (Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center), Pillip M. Papadopoulos, George A. Geist and Richard Alexander (Oak Ridge National Lab) presented at the Intel Supercomputers Users Group, June 11-13, 1997, Albuquerque, New Mexico. See The Program, The Abstract of the Paper and The Paper.

If Microsoft were to register “Seamless Computing” as a trademark in the future, would it stand?

Foley writes at Microsoft-Watch:

“Microsoft execs first began talking about seamless computing (no “TM,” but Microsoft is using initial caps when referring to the term) back in 2001, when the company rolled out Windows XP.

Microsoft seems to be equating Seamless Computing with interoperability. But Redmond’s kind of Seamless Computing isn’t focused interoperability among heterogeneous systems and software from different vendors (which is what most folks mean when they talk interoperability). Instead, Seamless Computing, according to Microsoft, is all about interconnecting Windows-based systems, from the Auto PC, to the Media Center PC, to the data-center hub.”

Beyond Seamless Computing: Seamless Lawyering and Seamless Blogging

From the standpoint of the legal profession and law bloggers, the next steps forward in the evolution of “Seamless Computing” – in the spirit of the Eolas patent applications – are of course foreseeable to us all.

We can in the future probably expect to have the following two terms – sorry, we could not resist these. The first is:

Seamless Lawyering

“Seamless Lawyering” (TM) – the term is hereby coined and trademarked by LawPundit today, January 31, 2004, as we found no listings whatsoever when we entered this term in the Google search box. Under “Seamless Lawyering” we understand the seamless interoperable and ubiquitous digital process which extends

from

1) client acquisition through websites, blogs or similar online resources

to 2) client correspondence by blogs, e-mail and other digital media

to 3) speech communication via voice mail and comparable digital technologies

to 4) client representation through online resources, e.g. electronic filings – excluding of course any required personal appearances before courts, regulatory bodies or other government offices, and

to 5) execution of online legal tasks by legal professionals in the exercise of their responsibilities, including of course online research, contract negotiation through networked online meetings, and so on

– all such “seamless lawyering” to be achieved via the internet or similar digital means.

A “seamless client” would be one whose legal requirements would be fulfilled by a “seamless lawyer” who would never meet the client personally. As strange as this sounds, we are sure this will one day in fact be a digital reality.

and the second term:

Seamless Bloggiing

“Seamless Blogging” (TM) – the term is hereby coined and trademarked by LawPundit today, January 31, 2004. Under “Seamless Blogging” we understand the seamless interoperable and ubiquitous digital process of the creation of blogs, whether as text, graphics, photography (both blogging or moblogging) or mixed media – all combined with the seamless digital distribution (e.g. by Atom or RSS, or similar existing or future technologies) of their content on state of the art digital media, such as computers, pda’s, mobile phones, and future derivative technologies, etc. An optimized “seamless blogger” will cover the bandwidth of every possible digital technology and a “seamless blog” will be accessible by syndication at any time, anywhere, on any media by anyone.

Better Microsoft than Eolas

Are we kidding? Now why would we do that? We simply did not want Eolas to beat us to the punch.

In the spirit of good faith, however, we now thus throw the terms “Seamless Lawyering” and “Seamless Blogging” into the public domain, to be used gratis by anyone who finds them useful. As for “Seamless Computing” we will see what Microsoft and Bill Gates bring us in the future. Listen, the Law Pundit is a great fan of Bill Gates. What a bright guy and what a tremendous positive impact he has made on our age. Wonderful. Makes you glad to be here in this era.