The title "The Fourth Utility'' was intriguing, so about 100 people showed up to hear a talk about "intelligent buildings'' by SolutionInc Bermuda Ltd. and Lucent Technologies last Wednesday.

Computer whizzes, architects, engineers, property managers, and others in the building industry turned up. I understood a bit but not much. The topic became much clearer after I had a conversation later with Paul Claude, president of SolutionInc Bermuda.

Remember Mr. Claude? He's the entrepreneur who along with Allan Marshall founded Pure Water to sell distilled water in the local market, then sold the company for $2 million cash plus shares to Watlington Waterworks Ltd.

Now he's on to a different utility company. The description works. Water was the first utility to be run into a building, electricity the second utility (the first wired building was in Chicago in 1903), and voice over telephone the third utility. Information over the Internet is the fourth utility.

SolutionInc is in the business of designing and installing high speed Internet access for the desktop computer. That means putting together the software and hardware necessary to complete the task.

SolutionInc Bermuda is licensed by Halifax, Nova Scotia-based SolutionInc to bring the company's services to the Island and was set up in October last year.

SolutionInc came on the scene in Halifax when it sold its information system to the property manager of an office tower who was trying to succeed in a market which had an 18 percent vacancy rate. The owner of Purdy's Wharf Tower -- where SolutionInc resides -- decided to take the chance. After the system was installed businesses were clamouring to get in and the manager soon had a waiting list. The manager is now planning for a third office tower.

In Bermuda, Mr. Claude's team of four people are currently working on designing an "information building'' at the architectural firm Barker & Linberg's offices on King Street. The Grosvenor Lodge building, where SolutionInc Bermuda also resides, will incorporate the company's Internet system design.

An intelligent building is a big step up from an information building. For a fully intelligent building Grosvenor Lodge would have to be gutted to take out all the wires and install the new system.

Currently, except for about 150 intelligent buildings around the world, most structures have separate wiring for power, voice, data, ventilation, air conditioning, heating, fire, energy management, elevators, and so on. That's a lot of wiring running though the walls of a building.

SolutionInc has linked up with Lucent Technologies, a cabling and networking company, to market itself as a project manager to design one pipe into which all the various wires fit. It's one bundle instead of five to ten bundles running though the building.

Such a solution brings costs savings and is a means of marketing the building to prospective tenants. You also don't have to go digging through walls and floors to find the correct wire to redesign the configuration. You simply arrive, rearrange the contact points and plug in.

But more importantly the system allows integrated office automation. Here's the scenario. An employee walks into an intelligent building at night. He uses his security card to get in. The building is programmed to turn on the corridor lights to his office. His office lights turn on. The air conditioning, the coffee machine and the computer start up.

Laying foundations for the intelligent building He next wants to move to another area. He flips a switch in the telecommunications closet and his telephone number changes to that area. He walks over to the other office with a laptop and plugs into the network through a connection in the wall.

Such systems have been installed in Mexico City, the Philadelphia Airport, the Washington Post press facility, and the Arizona Diamondbacks baseball park.

Here in Bermuda, SolutionInc is attempting to score its first client for an intelligent building. For now it's marketing the core business -- information buildings. One big area they see ripe for development is the hotel business.

More and more business travellers are using the Internet to stay in touch with the home office. They're often downloading large files over telephone wire from their rooms, tying up the hotel's switches, sometimes for hours.

SolutionInc is marketing a system which allows the traveller to plug a laptop into a wall connection and get instant high-speed Internet access that's separate from the hotel's telephone system.

The user simply picks up a computer disk from the hotel when he checks in to enable logging on to the system and is billed for time.

As far as Mr. Claude knows there is currently no hotel in the world with such a system. SolutionInc in Halifax is in discussions with two hotels in Canada.

In Bermuda, Elbow Beach is interested. I'll bet a lot of other hoteliers are realising how big this Internet thing has become.

As SolutionInc's Giles Crouch said on Wednesday, the company hasn't invented anything new, it's just building a better mousetrap.

More accusations were levelled against bad boy Microsoft Corp. during the past week. Software executives at a US Senate hearing claimed that installing Microsoft's Windows Media Player cripples other rival products such as RealAudio and RealVideo players from RealNetworks Inc.

Xing Technologies Inc. and Digital Bit Casting Corp. (which makes Nettoob) also said their media players were disabled by the Microsoft version.

The video and audio streaming software enables PCs to get TV and radio shows across the Internet.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is looking into allegations Microsoft is using unfair tactics to dominate the software market.

Microsoft has denied the charges.

You know how good computer technology can screw up the workplace no matter what kind of fancy machines you have got. Just be thankful you don't work at Hong Kong's new $20-billion airport. It's only now, shortly after opening of Chek Lap Kok airport on July 6, that things are getting back to normal after computer glitches began affecting the air cargo terminals.

According to Bloomberg news baggage-handling computers malfunctioned because of poorly written software, leading to a chain of events in which passengers missed planes, flight information monitors went blank and one of every two bags was temporarily lost. The cargo handling operation was hardest hit and businesses lost an estimated $594 million due to the disruptions.

Tech Tattle focuses on technology issues. Contact Ahmed at 295-5881 ext. 248, 238-3854, or techtattle ygazette.newsmedia.com.