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Less Is Moore
Hugh Pickens writes "For years, the computer industry has made steady progress by following Moore's law, derived from an observation made in 1965 by Gordon Moore that the amount of computing power available at a particular price doubles every 18 months. The Economist reports however that in the midst of a recession, many companies would now prefer that computers get cheaper rather than more powerful, or by applying the flip side of Moore's law, do the same for less. A good example of this is virtualisation: using software to divide up a single server computer so that it can do the work of several, and is cheaper to run. Another example of 'good enough' computing is supplying 'software as a service,' via the Web, as done by Salesforce.com, NetSuite and Google, sacrificing the bells and whistles that are offered by conventional software that hardly anyone uses anyway. Even Microsoft is jumping on the bandwagon: the next version of Windows is intended to do the same as the last version, Vista, but to run faster and use fewer resources. If so, it will be the first version of Windows that makes computers run faster than the previous version. That could be bad news for computer-makers, since users will be less inclined to upgrade — only proving that Moore's law has not been repealed, but that more people are taking the dividend it provides in cash, rather than processor cycles."
Some of you may remember the 1980s and early 1990s, where PCs started out costing $5,000 and declined slowly to around $2,500 for name brand models.
Around 1995, CPUs exceeded the GUI requirements of all the apps then popular (this is pre-modern gaming, of course). Around 1996 and into 1997 the prices of PCs fell off a cliff, down to $1,000.
Those who fail to remember history...
One of the things I learned many years ago, is that computer and computing speed isn't a function of how fast something runs. Rather it is a matter of whether or not you actually run something.
If computer speeds are twice as fast, and it currently takes you ten seconds to accomplish Task A, and a new computer will allow you to accomplish that same task in 5 seconds .... getting a new computer is not that big of a deal.
However, if you run Task B, which takes 1.5 hours to complete, and a new computer will run that same task in say 4 minutes (Real world example from my past, log processing), the difference isn't necessarily the 86 minute difference, but rather if and how often you actually run that task.
It is endlessly amusing to see "real world benchmarks" that run in 3 minutes for most processors, separated by less than 2 x. Or frames per sec. Or ...... whatever.
When shit takes too long to get done, you tend NOT to do it. If the difference is a few seconds, that is nice and all, and a few seconds may be of interest to "extreme" hobbyists.
But Real World differences are not marginally decreasing from 300 to 279 seconds. Sorry, but those extra few seconds aren't going to prevent you from running that Task.
The true measure is not how fast something gets done, but whether or not you actually do the task, because the time involve is prohibitive.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
This is dangerous territory for Microsoft to be in. Levelling off of computer power means that buyers are getting off the upgrade treadmill -- they're not buying new computers every couple of years. Preloads on new computers are where Microsoft makes the bulk of their Windows sales.
To make matters worse, without constant upgrades, Microsoft and ISV's can't count on new API's becoming widespread anytime soon, so they have to write applications for the lowest common denominator. This prevents Microsoft from forcing its latest agenda onto everyone -- and even worse, it could potentially provide the WINE team enough time to reach feature parity with Windows XP. (Spare me the lecture, have you tried WINE lately? It's surprisingly good these days.)
All in all, Microsoft is being forced to stand still in a place where they can't afford to. Commoditization sucks when you're a monopolist, doesn't it?
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