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A Metcalfe column, such as those collected in Metcalfe's Internet Collapses and Other Infoworld Punditry, can be exciting or unnerving, it can wax poetic or incite controversy. While the subject matter is not always the most interesting to non-geeks (after all, he was the inventor of the Ethernet protocol and cofounder of 3Com; that is, an engineer), he has a way of tackling subjects that are at the very heart of computing and the Internet.
This book contains 133 columns written between 1991 and 2000, on subjects ranging from wiring, pricing, Microsoft, and privacy, to the "collapse" of the Internet, the Internet stock bubble burst, ISPs and the Open Source movement. Metcalfe has probably made as many friends as he has enemies writing these columns, but no one can accuse him of toning down his message.
As far back as 1991, he was suggesting that Microsoft was "abusing its power," and he has born the standard of this idea ever since. The many columns on the Microsoft question show that, while the issue is not black-and-white, neither are his opinions. He lashes out at the "Open-Sores" movement with the same acerbic wit, prompting the ire of many who thought he was their friend.
What is unique in this book is all the places where Metcalfe has been wrong. There are many, which is not surprising for someone who goes out on a limb so often, but he has no qualms about including these major mistakes in the book for posterity. In 1995, given the exponential growth of the Internet, he predicted that it would collapse in 1996. (Remember that this is the man who posited Metcalfe's law, which says the value of a network is relative to the square of the number of its users -- in other words, the more users there are, the more traffic increases, and this increase is not geometric, but exponential.) Well, it didn't collapse in 1996, or ever since, for that matter, but the columns on the subject, all written in 1995 and 1996, give good insight into what might have happened. Even though he was dead wrong, a lot of the points he raised are valid.
Another unique element of this book is that it contains rebuttals from many people who put his comments in a different light. They range from Bruce Sterling, rebutting a column on the term "cyberspace;" to Nathan Myhrvold, whose refusal to rebut is included as a rebuttal; to Eric Raymond, attacking his comments on the "Open-Sores" movement.
As a historical document, Internet Collapses and Other Infoworld Punditry shows the thinking and insights of one of the key thinkers in the computer world. While he is not always right, his opinions are often controversial, and his track record is pretty good. The book contains columns that, in retrospect are correct, and others that aren't, but at least he's not afraid of showing where he went wrong.
You could, actually, download all these columns from the web (http://www.infoworld.com/metcalfe), but having them in a book gives them some extra weight that you wouldn't get onscreen.
This book is a good read, though not for everyone. The geekier among us will appreciate it most, since it often deals with technical questions. But Metcalfe writes with a refreshing tone, one that is all too absent these days.
-- Kirk McElhearn (kirk@mcelhearn.com)