Metcalfe, a general partner with Polaris Venture Partners was the star of the afternoon program, held for an invite-only crowd of 300 or so Silicon Valley luminaries and media (see 3Com Salutes Ethernet at 30). He also moderated a panel of Valley vets who swapped stories about Ethernet's old days and the struggle to get the protocol accepted.
As legend has it, Ethernet was born in a 1973 memo by Metcalfe, who invented the concept with fellow PARC researcher Dave Boggs. And it's been a battle ever since. Metcalfe rattled off a few dozen challengers Ethernet has faced: other PARC protocols, technologies from other companies such as Apple Computer Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) or Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ), and political rivals within the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc. (IEEE) 802.3 standardization efforts.
So, what's kept Ethernet on top? Well, it's partly a semantic trick: "Ethernet has changed and changed and changed -- and thank goodness, they still use the same word for it."
But like Doctor Who's regenerations, Ethernet has retained some core characteristics. It's simple and flexible, and that's helped its longevity.
In fact, Metcalfe said he chose the word "Ether" because he didn't want Ethernet to be associated with a particular media such as co-ax cables or copper twisted pair. That flexibility helped keep Ethernet relevant as technology advanced. "It planted the idea that [Ethernet] was going to evolve."
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