Industry

Internet Service Provision
 Thursday, July 18, 2002

Viscous Circle

I attended a presentation Tuesday by IBM on their pSeries (nee RS/6000) line and AIX. The movement of SP and mainframe technologies down to lower-end systems is exciting, as are the Linux efforts. The problem with the Linux affinity program is the same that Windows NT had on PowerPC, MIPS, and Alpha: application support. The applications, typically Oracle, you would run on these systems are binary only for Intel architecture systems, so Linux affinity doesn't get you much. However, Oracle and IBM expect you to run AIX — and if there's something you need that's Linux-specific, run Linux in an LPAR.

But after all the talk of engines and workloads, I got to thinking about what workloads might require the horsepower that's available in systems from HP, IBM, Sun, and others. Most people aren't simulating nuclear blasts, predicting hurricanes, exploring for oil, playing Gary Kasparov, or pretending to fly through space. And because of Moore's Law, cheap systems provide more than enough power.

What new uses will come along to take advantage of this capacity? Will it be nothing more than incremental operating system upgrades?

3:05:31 PM # Google It!
categories: Industry

Casting Pearls Among Swine

Listen closely because this is very simple.

  1. Call your CATV provider. Ask for the Internet access without television package.
  2. Buy this
  3. Buy this or this
  4. Buy this

The problem now becomes one of getting the video off the computer and on to your television, which sits in the same room as your couch. By which time you find it's easier just to buy a TiVo or ReplayTV with Ethernet support.

Why is this all possible? Because you are not buying the content, you are buying the connection. The content is thrown out, on the air, on the network, in the vague hope that you will receive it. The exception which proves the rule is HBO.

Is it legal? Good question.

12:07:31 PM # Google It!
categories: Industry, Law, Low-Hanging Fruit, Media