COMMENT - All change for vendors travelling on the networking express.

Recently I found myself having lunch on the Orient Express, along with a motley crew of unlikely passengers from the IT press. A clever move by the PR company, the allure of posh nosh is always guaranteed to attract the hungry-hack hordes, but also quite analogous in the circumstances.

The Orient Express is a remnant of an age of plodding luxury that has been overtaken by the speed and streamlining of the modern world. The core of the train remains the same, the carriages are still luxurious, the level of service during lunch still supreme, yet the engine that allows this service to operate is of modern design - liveried to integrate with the carriages, but delivering the required levels of efficiency and economy.

None of these modernisations detract from the experience that is the Orient Express, all of them enable this legacy train to keep serving up its blend of luxury and tradition in an age where we are most used to travelling along high-speed Intercity lines at 125mph.

Building up a head of steam

All very nice for him, you're thinking, but what's it got to do with networking? Well, change is the most significant common denominator of the networking world as we rapidly approach the next millennium.

Companies that cannot offer more than a begrudging nod in the direction of progress will be lucky to get past the Y2K party hangovers. Those not only willing to accept the paradigm shifts that pepper the networking industry, but actively embrace them and the opportunities they present will prosper. Whether it is change from the fat desktop client to the thin application server or change from distinctly local Lans to globally connected internet-facing intranets.

It would be fair to say that you need to be almost chameleon-like to survive these changes, making the most of the considerable investment in hardware, software and skill that already exists, while integrating the opportunities on offer from the new kids on the technology block.

The network manager, of course, knows all about this. They are left to sort out the mess created as businesses continue towards their goal of consolidation through acquisition, while network technology and its users happily march ever onwards in increasingly diverse directions.

Back on track for change

This strategic dichotomy provides a challenge for all but the most flexible of beards, with disparate systems to be integrated, access managed securely and often the compounding problem of multiple layers of legacy applications to be accommodated for good measure. The ubiquitous web-to-host browser client model may allow anywhere and anytime access for an increasing user base, but what of the wider picture? Only the most naive of network managers would dismiss the fact that a mix of connectivity platforms and hosts will need to be supported for many years to come.

Which brings me back to the Orient Express. The company that hosted this day trip for the press was NetManage. Those of you with long memories will remember that it used to be big in the field of TCP/IP stacks.

Of late it has been on the acquisition trail, the most notable addition being FTP Software. The result is something of a re-positioning of NetManage in the network connectivity market and the launch of a 'user-centric networking' product line in its eN2000 unified architecture for enterprise connectivity. As this is being rolled out during the course of 1999, it's impossible to say if this will revive the company's revenues, but at least it is embracing change without forgetting the legacy needs of those with a huge investment in 'old' fat technology and, what's more, are using non-proprietary, existing directory services as well. For that, I thank them.

Davey Winder is a writer, broadcaster and consultant who has been named Technology Journalist of the Year.