Jeff Marshall

Senior Managing Director, Communications Technologies Group, Bear, Stearns & Co

by Timothy Haight

Jeff Marshall has led the user community for years.. Since 1988, he has focused on creating a network that merges LAN and WAN and carries integrated data, voice, video and image. The network vision is "virtual," allowing any user to plug in anywhere, accessing the same services as on the desktop. To implement this vision, Marshall helped found the ATM Forum in 1990.

Today, Marshall's priorities are set on the steps beyond his original vision. Managing the fast, flexible new network has become key. "In the short term, we've been using predictive technologies where we can anticipate how our network components will perform," he says. Other projects include establishing Web servers both for internal distribution of news and information and for participating in the Internet community, achieving global video distribution over Bear, Stearns' global network and using ATM.

Where's the industry heading? "With developments in the relational database world and mirroring technologies, and as servers around the world begin to work as one, services are going to become more prevalent in voice, data, video and image than ever before," Marshall says. We're going to see very smart network connections, which will be transaction based and transaction billed. We've had to anticipate those developments by getting almost clairvoyant network devices and management tools in place, so that applications and network performance are managed in unison."

Most Important Trend: Networ k services brought to you anywhere from anywhere, with office desktop performance

Most Disturbing Trend: RBOCs have not fully deployed SONET technologies

NetPeeve: None

Non-Computer Reading: Fighter Combat Tactics and Maneuvering, by Robert L. Shaw

September 15, 1995