Commentary - Dynamic, Distributed, Platform Independent OR/MS Applications - A Network Perspective

W e are in the midst of, or perhaps at the beginning of, the development of a new concept of computing and computers that will significantly affect OR/MS. This development is summarized in the phrase " the network is the computer. " The focus and use is not an individual computer and its resources but a network of computers and resources, indeed, a network of all computers. This concept is closely tied to an evolving view about what a computer is; we now have an exploding number of ubiquitous devices with computational capacity, such as credit cards, cellular phones, and TV set-top boxes. We need to anticipate the impact of millions and then billions of programmable devices that are interconnected on a high bandwidth network accessible by millions and then billions of individuals. The sudden and fast moving development of computer networks and the wide distribution of powerful computing devices is revolutionizing not just OR/MS, but commerce, communications, and indeed , nearly all aspects of society. The feature article by Bhargava and Krishnan (BK) is an important contribution to an unfolding dialogue about how OR/MS will evolve and redefine itself as computer networks emerge as the environment of choice for many applications. The question is not just how existing products will be distributed and accessed on the network, but how OR/MS products and ideas will be used, what new products will be developed, and how OR/MS will be reshaped by the changing environment and the new concepts. As its title indicates, the BK article is focused on the use of the Web and browsers rather than on the larger use of computer networks. This viewpoint is based on their experience with DecisionNet [1] that they and others developed over the last several years. DecisionNet is an inspired, well-developed application that uses the Web and browsers to effectively deliver OR/MS applications to a wider audience. The authors have developed a market-based approach that uses a software broker to connect producers with consumers of OR/MS applications. DecisionNet effectively achieves three objectives: (1) it makes applications visible to potential consumers, (2) it avoids moving (porting) applications to the (variety) of consumer computing environments, and (3) it makes it easy for consumers to submit data to the producer's computer. There are OR/MS applications that use computer networks without necessarily using the Web or browsers. Since 1996, we have been working with graduate students to …