For Immediate Release 

Susan Barich
Director of Business Development
Silicon Valley World Internet Center
650-462-9800
barich@worldinternetcenter.com

INTERNET USAGE ONLY AT THE BEGINNING SAYS IBM'S JOHN PATRICK AT THE
SILICON VALLEY WORLD INTERNET CENTER

Technology Futurist Draws Overflow Crowd Of Internet Developers And Entrepreneurs

PALO ALTO, CA -- (INTERNET WIRE) -- 12/12/2000 -- "We're at one or two percent of the impact we can expect from the Internet on both our business and our personal lives," IBM's John Patrick told a crowd of nearly 200 Internet technologists and entrepreneurs at the Silicon Valley World Internet Center on November 28. IBM's Vice President of Internet Technology, Patrick (http://www.ibm.com/patrick), articulated IBM's vision of the future of the Internet, speaking of unlimited bandwidth, the importance of partnerships, starting simple and growing quickly.

"Of the things we could be doing or would like to do with the Internet, we're only at the beginning," said Patrick.

Referring to technological possibilities such as "intelligent photons" for data transmission on the net, Patrick said, "This next generation of the Internet that is under construction will make today's Internet soon seem primitive. And bandwidth will not be a problem. We will have plenty."

Patrick reminded the entrepreneurs in the audience to think big, but start simple and grow fast. "It is so critical to start simple," he said. "Start with a couple of products and then listen hard to what people say, then iterate, build, grow quickly. This allows you to scale better. It allows you to be a more responsive partner for prototyping. Large company or small, no company can do it all. Partnering is more crucial than ever. And prototyping is more important than ever."

Patrick calls application integration the Holy Grail of eBusiness. "Don't wait for the big idea," he told the group. "Don't wait for the final version. Get it out there, and think integration."

During the Challenge-the-Expert portion of the program, Patrick and Joe Gotshall of SSH Communications Security, Inc. (http://www.ssh.com) engaged in dialog about IPSec (Internet Protocol Security) and end-to-end security. "There are a lot of people out there who feel that deploying IPV6 (the next generation of the Internet) is the only way to achieve IPSec compliant standards." said Gotshall, "But there is a method of encapsulating the IPSec packets into a UDP packet so that you have true end-to-end security even over a natted transmission."

The group, gathered at the Center located in the heart of Silicon Valley, were about as Internet savvy as anyone might be able to put together on the face of the Earth.

"I thought the talk was fantastic," said Shashank Parasnis of Red Dash Software (http://www.reddash.com). "It is gratifying to see the big companies thinking far ahead and taking a major role in the future of the Internet."

"I was very impressed by John Patrick," said Nancy Bremeau of Red Herring Magazine (http://www.redherring.com.) "He was very eloquent about the next generation of the Internet, and I learned a lot from him."

IBM (http://www.ibm.com) is a Sponsor of the Center (http://www.worldinternetcenter.com), a combination think tank and showcase for Internet-related technologies and markets, located in Palo Alto, California.