Business's digital black cloud
http://www.economist.com/business/displayStory.cfm?story_id=4173652
Jul 14th 2005 | LOS ANGELES
From The Economist print edition
New, faster computer chips are challenging the traditional structure of
the huge business-software industry
FOR the past 40 years, companies around the world have grown accustomed
to a doubling in computing power every 18 months to two
years-fulfilling a remarkable forecast made in 1965 by Gordon Moore,
one of the founders of Intel, a semiconductor powerhouse based in
Silicon Valley. As their businesses have expanded, managers have been
able to sleep easy in the knowledge that next year's computers would be
more than able to keep pace with their needs and probably cost no more
than last year's models. Alternatively, slowpokes with steady workloads
have been able to replace ageing computers with flashier models costing
half as much. The declining real cost of computing has been an economic
boon.
Even as millions more transistors are crammed on to slivers of silicon,
Moore's law continues to deliver the goods. But the tricks chipmakers
such as Intel and AMD are exploiting to achieve this miracle are
changing the whole approach to enterprise computing. In the process
they are unleashing powerful disruptive forces. New chip architecture
is allowing them to roll out ever more heavy-duty hardware at
competitive prices.
A Blueprint for the Future
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.atheism/msg/59c28cd6dfe6f60f
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