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Why Your IT Spending Is About To Hit the Wall
CowboyRobot writes "For decades, rapid increases in storage, processor speed, and bandwidth have kept up with the enormous increases in computer usage. That could change however, as consumption finally outpaces the supply of these resources. It is instructive to review the 19th-century Economics theory known as Jevons Paradox. Common sense suggests that as efficiencies rise in the use of a resource, the consumption goes down. Jevons Paradox posits that efficiencies actually drive up usage, and we're already seeing examples of this: our computers are faster than ever and we have more bandwidth than ever, yet our machines are often slow and have trouble connecting. The more we have, the even more we use."
In our company, IT spending is actually dropping, even as we expand. The cost of used hardware is insanely low because of all of the individuals and companies who still feel the need to buy "new" equipment so rapidly. We have no problems running Pentium 4's and Windows XP throughout our business, and wil do so for the foreseeable future.. We've moved our email/backup/web hosting services out to providers, and all of that is sill insanely cheap. Tech has actually exceeded our needs, so our IT spending has dropped significantly. Keep buying new machines every few years, people! We're loving buying your completely functional equipment at yard sale prices!
I don't respond to AC's.
If I gather what this article is speculating on, it's a phenomena similar to peak-oil.
Peak-oil doesn't necessarily mean that you run-out of oil, it just means that the marginal cost of producing more oil reaches a point which causes the rate of oil production to decrease. In the backdrop of increasing demand, and limited supply this implies a sharp downturn in availability of oil at historical prices.
If applied to computing, it would imply a limit to computing resources. I don't think we are there (although computing takes lots of electrical power and there seems to be enough semiconductor manufacturing capacity for the moment), but we may be at a point where demand increases beyond the rate at which technology can keep it on its historical increasing MIP/$ trend. If this MIP/$ trend flattens out, it may be difficult to find funding for new technological advances and fundamentally change the market for computing.