Will grids go the way of the web?

The radio presenter Danny Baker used to have a piece on his show entitled Everything you know is wrong. It focused on factoids of consensual wisdom that turn out to be untrue - lemmings don't really throw themselves off cliffs, Captain Pugwash characters didn't really have rude names, and the Woodstock festival didn't actually take place at Woodstock.

As the internet matures, it turns out that a lot of what we thought at the time of the dot-com bubble was wrong too. Think back to some of the biggest ones:

IP will become the universal transport for data, voice, video...

But voice telephony remains a stubborn hold-out for firms that hate the lousy quality of internet calling, and video is just too slow and jerky on most IP links.

Convergence between media content owners and internet companies is inevitable

But the company that took the big plunge is swimming in red ink. Last week AOL Time Warner hinted that it may drop the AOL part of the company name, a symbolic execution that underlines how old media is the only part of the company that is succeeding. In the late-1990s it was taken as read that online media would bite chunks out of print, film and TV.

So far though, the supposed synergies promoted by web boosters have been minor or even negative. AOL Time Warner recently stopped offering free universal access to magazine web sites and says the move has boosted print sales.

"Eyeballs" are critical

How often do you hear that today? Not often because it's clear you can have a ton of site visitors and still not turn a profit. Instead, the old idea of charging for content and cross-selling merchandise is back.

First-mover advantage is key

Not necessarily. The success of sites such as Ocado and Opodo suggest that the right service can still win through - even against relatively hoary incumbents.

The mobile internet will be the next big wave

Not so far. Fixed links still represent the bulk of web access, and 2.5G and 3G have had a minimal effect.

Some of the commandments contradicted each other but were still both wrong:

Companies with no legacy will be more agile

Nope. Instead, it turns out that old dogs such as Tesco and Waitrose can learn new tricks. Whereas:

Clicks-and-mortar hybrid firms will offer the best of both worlds

That hasn't stopped Expedia, Lastminute.com, Amazon and others from being successful.

With grid computing emerging as the prime candidate for Next Big Thing status, it is worth remembering how far off the mark self-appointed IT experts can go.

There is plenty of reason to think that many current predictions for grids will be proven wrong. There is hype about harnessing huge amounts of computing power by using spare processing, memory and other system resources from idle computers anywhere on the web. The reality, in the short-term, is that most firms will tread carefully. Grids need tougher standards and security if they are to extend their reach beyond the LAN firewall.

Lots of us got the internet wrong and that should give us pause before placing bets on the outcome of the grid model. As is often the case, it's the pioneers who end up with the arrows in their backs.

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