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Top 5 Submerging Technologies Pinpointed
An anonymous reader writes "Computerworld makes its picks of five 'submerging' (i.e. dying) technologies, as the article asks 'Where are the review committees for obsolete technologies?' The picks, made by 'corporate IT managers and analysts', include Windows 9x, client/server computing and Visual Basic 6."
Submerging Technologies: Five That Are Sinking Fast
These technologies are rapidly taking on water. Is it time to jump ship?
Story by Gary H. Anthes and Robert L. Mitchell
OCTOBER 20, 2003 ( COMPUTERWORLD ) - Most corporate IT organizations have steering committees to craft strategies for new technologies, chief technology officers to assess new products, and IT policies and procedures for developing and buying new hardware and software.
But where are the review committees for obsolete technologies? Who's looking at what's in the data center, on desktops and in briefcases to see if they still make sense? Who's checking to see if spare parts, vendor support and employees with the right skills will be available next month--or next year?
In most companies, no one is doing those things in any rigorous way, says John Parkinson, chief technologist for the Americas region at Cap Gemini Ernst & Young in Chicago. "I know of very few companies that actively manage sunsetting their IT," he says. "They think it will last forever."
It doesn't, of course. But in most cases, there's no need to rush: "No tool is really outdated if it serves the needs of end users," says Eric Goldfarb, CIO at PRG-Schultz International Inc. in Atlanta. However, IT managers who wait too long may risk being forced into expensive last-minute changes to accommodate new technology initiatives as business needs change. That IP telephony call center application won't fly if you have to replace not only the private branch exchange but also update network cabling and those nonswitched, shared-media Ethernet hubs.
Parkinson says that for each type of software and hardware installed, companies should have an estimated cost and date to replace it and an estimated cost to retain it. "You really should have this in the plan when you [buy], otherwise you won't know what ROI to expect," he says.
Of course, some technologies need closer scrutiny than others. So Computerworld asked corporate IT managers and analysts what items they would put at the top of their lists. Some of them may justify an immediate rip-and-replace strategy; others should be put on your "endangered" list. Here are five submerging technologies to watch in 2004:
1. WINDOWS 9x
Why it's sinking: Can 92 million users be wrong? Yes. Declining support, reliability problems, security issues and incompatibility with new applications should drive the remaining installed base to Windows 2000 or XP.
Credit: Red Nose Studio
No obsolete technology is in wider use than the 9x versions of Microsoft Corp.'s operating system. "Windows 9x is getting to be pretty much unsustainable," says Tony Iams, an analyst at D.H. Brown Associates Inc. in Port Chester, N.Y. Indeed, many companies have already migrated to Windows 2000 Professional to gain the reliability of an operating system built on the more stable NT kernel.
But eradicating Windows 9x won't come easy: IDC in Framingham, Mass., estimates that by year's end, there will still be 17 million Windows 95 installations, 48 million Windows 98 users and 27 million machines still running Windows Me. And the majority of those are business PCs, claims IDC analyst Dan Kuznetsky. "In the long term, it will probably be less costly to upgrade [to Windows XP], just because the NT kernel is much more reliable," he says.
But what if your organization has waited? Should you go directly to XP, wait for the next generation (code-named Longhorn) or choose something else?
Don't hold your breath for Longhorn: It isn't due to arrive until 2005 at the earliest. Linux is a widely touted option, but for many the idea of replacing thousands of Windows installations, training users on a new operating system and getting it to work with existing Windows applications is a nonstarter.
Tom Pratt, information systems manager at Coastal Transportation Inc. in Seattle, says he has no plans to abandon Windows 98. The applications running on his boats won't run on anything else,
if you want funding now you have to be:
client server isn't dying - the server has become "enterprise" and the client has becom "personal"
2 1337 4 u!
And it's just now dying?
That's what I thought until I worked for a big company.
I did an inventory of how many printers we still have on Token Ring last week, and the count was about 1200 (versus about 3000 ethernet).
We just finished phasing out TR for our corporate buildings a year and a half ago.
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
This is the chart that concluded the article...
Legend---
Out - O:
In - I:
Why - Y:
----
O: 900-MHz wireless LANs
I: 802.11 WLANs
Y:Early WLANs installed in warehouses and manufacturing floors won't work with 802.11b. Integration requires an upgrade.
O:1U (1.75-in. high) servers
I:Blade servers
Y:They save space, eliminate cables and lower costs by sharing power supplies and connectivity.
O:Color ink-jet printers
I:Color laser printers
Y:Color laser printers used to cost thousands; now they're well under $1,000. And color laser cartridge changes are less frequent--and less messy.
O:CRT monitors
I:LCD monitors
Y:Flicker-free LCDs reduce eyestrain; the tubeless design saves on desk space, and the LCDs are less environmentally hazardous at disposal time than CRTs.
O:Dot-matrix printers
I:Ink-jet/laser printers
Y:Dot-matrix printers are still good for multipart forms, but as volumes have fallen, prices have jumped above those of both ink-jet and low-end laser printers.
O:Ethernet hubs
I:Intelligent switches
Y:Newer switches are inexpensive, a prerequisite for IP telephony, and typically support Simple Network Management Protocol for remote manageability.
O:File servers
I:Network-attached storage appliances
Y:Why maintain file servers for shared storage when you can plug in a simple appliance?
O:Floppy disks
I:Flash disks, writable CDs, DVDs
Y:What fits on 1.44MB of disk space anymore?
O:Mac OS 9
I:Mac OS X
Y:Increased stability makes this upgrade a no-brainer.
O:Modems
I:Wireless LANs
Y:With WLANs expanding across offices, public spaces and hotels, the modem, with its 56Kbit/sec. speed limit, is fast becoming the computing equivalent of an automobile's limited-service spare tire--used only in emergencies, at low speeds.
O:PBXs
I:IP telephony/call manager servers
Y:With applications that require an integrated voice/data network already emerging, another long-term investment in a digital PBX at this point probably doesn't make sense.
O:PDAs
I:Cell phone/PDA hybrids
Y:Free up your pockets! New hybrid models are finally reaching a size and price where a single, integrated device makes sense.
O:Serial/parallel ports
I:USB 2.0 ports
Y:The ports won't go away on PCs anytime soon, but for new hardware, Universal Serial Bus peripherals are faster and often easier to set up.
O:Token Ring
I:Ethernet
Y:Ethernet: Cheap and ubiquitous. Token Ring: Expensive, with limited vendor sources. Any questions?
O:Windows NT servers
I:Windows 2000, Server 2003
Y:Support will disappear soon--as will all those security patches and updates.
O:Zip drives
I:Rewritable CD/DVD drives
Y:CD-ROM drives are inexpensive and ubiquitous, and the media are cheaper.
No, thats not what they mean. The devil's in the details ya know?
*FAT* client/server, whats also referred to as "2-Tier Intelligent Client" application architecture model is becoming outdated.
An application is composed of three layers:
- Application
- Business
- Data
You have three basic architectual models:
- 2-tier Intelligent Server
- 2-tier Intelligenc Client
- N-Tier
In the intelligent server model, most of the processing is done on the server, and in an intelligent client model, most processing is done on the client. N-tier is when an application is seperated on three machines (one for each piece of the model, and I use the term "machine" only for simplified logic, "system" would probably be a better word).
By using a intelligent client model (using "fat" clients), you can vector off quite a bit of processing from the server, to the client machine. Unfortunatly, this means maintaining client machines (hardware, software, the whole nine). So the push nowadays is to move to a two tier intelligent server model, and use "thin" clients. You maintain 0 software on the client machine, it works or it doesn't, and if it doesn't you just swap out a new client machine (we pay $230 for linux powered neoware thin clients, connecting to our citrix metaframe xp farm).
Try the American Revolution. Unlike the CSA's submarines, the Continental subs didn't have the nasty habit of killing their entire crew.
All's true that is mistrusted
What about Visual Basic for MS-DOS. Does anyone still have a copy?
It's easy to find - just google for vbdos.zip [Direct Link]. In fact, you can find most older software this way - ie, Borland Pascal 7 (bp7.zip | Direct), Turbo C++ 3 (tc3.zip | Direct), QuickBASIC 7/PDS (qb7.zip | Direct), Turbo Prolog (tprolog.zip | Direct , etc.
Try poking around in the directories containing the files listed above (eg, http://thegeekery.org/downloads/ci/ - they tend to have cool stuff.
ps. - I had a book on VB for DOS - the book was terrible, but so was VBDOS, so I guess they went well together.