Within decades, the emerging Distributed Multimedia Technology (DMT) will cause major changes in the global economy and in the social and political structures. The inevitable metamorphosis of the 'knowledge industry', which schools and universities are part of, should be particularly dramatic. Short-term economic arguments suggest that the physical and administrative structures defining institutions of higher learning today may soon become redundant as knowledge becomes a fluent commodity for 'just in time' delivery. Opposing this trend is the considerable inertia of the educational system, its internal power structures, and the limited technological knowledge of the educators. Calling for moderation are also theoretical arguments representing traditional academic and moral values.
