Keynote Speaker:
Bob Metcalfe

Technology Pundit Extrordinaire

About the Speaker

Bob Metcalfe has been a technology pundit since 1990 when he retired from 3Com Corporation, the multi-billion-dollar networking company he founded in 1979. Bob's Internet column in InfoWorld has 489,000 readers during a average week, which would be when he's not predicting collapses of the Internet or suggesting we pay postage on e-mail.

In 1996, Bob received the IEEE Medal of Honor for his leadership in the development, standardization, and commercialization of Ethernet, which he invented at Xerox Parc on May 22, 1973. Bob received his PhD in computer science from Harvard in 1973 and was appointed consulting associate professor of electrical engineering at Stanford after teaching part time there for eight years. However, Bob thinks of himself as a former engineer-entrepreneur from MIT, where he graduated in engineering and management, where he serves on the board of trustees, and where he is to be president of the alumni association starting in July.

Had Bob to do it all over again, to save everyone a lot of trouble, he would in 1979 have named his start-up networking company Candlestick Networking, Inc.

Abstract of Talk

Bob will no doubt be providing his insightful yet acerbic comments on the events of the week. He also says he'll refer back to his WWW4 wrap-up in December of 1995 at which he promised to eat his 12/4/95 InfoWorld column if, in his judgement, the Internet did not collapse in 1996.

It'll be interesting to see what he says to that...

Happy eating, Bob!

Page coordinator: Chris Quinn