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How Facebook Is Eating the $140 Billion Hardware Market
mattydread23 writes: It started out as a controversial idea inside Facebook. In four short years, the Open Compute Project has turned the $141 billion data-center computer-hardware industry on its head. This is the comprehensive history of the project, including interviews with founder Jonathan Heiliger and members of the financial services industry who are already on board, plus a dismissal from Google's own data center guru Urs Holzle.
I work in Detroit as an embedded software engineer (although, I've picked up some solid hardware skills in the last few years). I have just under 10 years experience and I make a CH under $100k. Auto industry pays me well. I have a job offer in SoCal which I am considering. I have a detailed spreadsheet, and after rent for a smaller place (I'd be selling a home to rent in CA) and taxes, I will have about the same amount of money. Given the cost of living out there, I will have less money after bills out there. It's a pretty hard sell financially. But, the beach is free! Ditto with hiking.
However, the problem with this job market, lucrative though it may be at the moment, is 2 fold: (1) A lot of the work is very boring. My skills are not growing at the pace they would in a faster paced business. And, boring is boring! (2) I have no idea what is going to happen to the American automakers. The industry is going to have one hell of a decade sooner rather than later. We have a business culture that's about 20 years out of date at least. My guess is we'll see even less vertical integration than we have now, and the traditional automakers will focus on what they do best: engines, materials, manufacturing, assembly, systems integration. I do not see a world where the automakers are going to catch up to the big boys with regards to electronics and software. They are just too far behind. We're already seeing Apple and Google invade the automotive electronics, which, IMO, is more of a vote of no confidence in the traditional auto industry's ability to make decent, useable consumer facing electronics. Engine controllers. We got that. Infotainment systems that don't make you want to drive off a bridge? Not so much. Sensors and automation? Maybe, but I don't see too much impressive at the deep technical level coming out of Detroit.
It gets murkier with algorithmic driving. There are some big boys that will fare just fine (like Bosch), but there are just too many small players moving too fast. Detroit has the skill set to integrate all that high technology, but we're losing a war of time with regards to creating cutting edge tech. People might argue that we're in a tech bubble, but the internet of things is not purely hot wind. Embedded is growing REALLY fast, and it's going to continue at a very nice clip. I think we'll see more market fragmentation for a little while before a reversal with cross market, embedded technology consolidation on a totally new scale. For consumers, that might be a good thing (probably a mixed blessing). For my career, it might hurt to stick with the losing side. There's a reason embedded companies aren't building tech centers here in Detroit where its cheaper and we have a massive technological workforce: our industry (and therefore our labor force) has a complacent culture compared to many other places in the country. If I were going to invest, I'd be much happier to train enthusiastic self starters than hire from an existing talent pool with a mediocre culture.