A year from now, what will be different than today? In other words, what will most PC owners be using 12 months from now versus what they have today? Better yet, what won't be as important?

Personally, I feel there will be 2 aspects of a computer that won't be as critical as they are today. Both local hard disk space and processor speed, for instance, may not have quite the importance. While the price of storage is declining - for example, a good 18 GB HDD can be had for around $200 - you have to wonder if saving information to your local hard disk drive will be the rule. Instead, it may be the exception.

Why? Well, it turns out that saving your data to a spot on the Web is a lot closer to reality than before. Companies like EMC Corp, IBM, Compaq and Hewlett-Packard are either considering, or actually involved in, the service of providing storage space to corporations or individuals. Chances are this will be an automatic, inexpensive process made easier as cable modem and DSL phone connections increase bandwidth to the Internet.

Local and network backup issues may be changing too. While tape has always been the most cost effective way of backing up your data, the presence of offsite backups mentioned above, or even rewritable CD's, is looking better as the technology improves. While CDs currently don't hold that much data - around 650 MB - compression technology may improve that. Still, don't throw out your tape backup units just yet.

Also, consider a product we all use, like Microsoft Office. Saving your word processing and Excel documents to a spot on the Web is now very easy. Often, that is on the hard drive of the corporate Intranet file server and not on your local box. Once again, local disk space is not necessary, even for applications like Office, which executes well directly from a server.

Speaking of server-centric applications, exactly how much processing speed do we need at the PC or workstation level? Running MS-Office on a 550MHz Pentium III seems to be just as fast as running it on a 733MHz box. While bandwidth from the Internet to your PC or from the server to your PC is never enough, processing power for traditional applications like Office doesn't seem to be that important anymore.

Another area that should change in the next year is your display device. Though most of us now have a 17 inch or 19 inch CRT-type monitor, look for the flat panel display to become cost-effective (a good one is now about $1,000) this year. When combined with the small form factor of new PCs such as Internet appliance models like the Compaq iPaq, and IBM's NetVista PC series, the presence of a PC on a executives desk will start to look elegant and sleek versus wiry and geek.

IBM is reportedly spending $100 million U.S. to promote NetVista. The all-in-one-model is a 16-by-16-by-10 inches, dark gray model built around a 15 inch flat-panel display. It is about 75 percent smaller than typical computers.

How about home networking? Like two cars in the driveway, the presence of 2 and even 3 computers in the basement or home office is now normal. Both Intel and 3Com have tools exactly for this procedure.

Naturally, wireless devices such as the Palm series will be huge in the next year. This includes wireless email units such as Research In Motion's BlackBerry. RIM's newest addition, the RIM 957 Wireless Handheld is a palm-sized handheld that is "Always On, Always Connected." Designed to compete with the Palm VII, the RIM 957 has a relatively large screen, a 32-bit Intel 386 processor, 5 MB flash memory, a tiny but easy-to-use keyboard and embedded wireless modem. Naturally you get a wireless e-mail solution and, like the Palm or Handspring devices, you get an integrated organizer.