Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2001 23:27:48 -0800 From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm@toybox.placo.com> To: <tlambert2@mindspring.com> Cc: "Brett Glass" <brett@lariat.org>, <jgrosch@mooseriver.com>, "Joey Garcia" <bear@unix.homeip.net>, <questions@FreeBSD.ORG>, <chat@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: RE: Anyone going to Comdex next week? Message-ID: <003d01c16cdd$dc7df8e0$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> In-Reply-To: <3BF04D57.3D67D78C@mindspring.com>
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>-----Original Message----- >From: Terry Lambert [mailto:tlambert2@mindspring.com] >Sent: Monday, November 12, 2001 2:30 PM >To: Ted Mittelstaedt >Cc: Brett Glass; jgrosch@mooseriver.com; Joey Garcia; >questions@FreeBSD.ORG; chat@FreeBSD.ORG >Subject: Re: Anyone going to Comdex next week? > > >Ted Mittelstaedt wrote: >> Today, the existing hardware is so good that there's not the drive to >> upgrade as soon as the new stuff is available, so that removes a lot of >> the reason of attending these trade shows for hardware people. > >I think this is false. There have always been two tiers of >technology: heroic and mortal. It's only interesting when >something slips from the former category to the latter. > >Right now, for example, there is a lot of hardware that I >would put in the "heroic" category. Processors that need >incredible cooling technology, etc.. And then there's the >other end of the spectrum, where ther are no moving parts. > >Plotting on other scales works for this, as well: many of >the "cool" technologies aren't useful, until you can deal >with the battery life issue: they don't -- they can't -- >become everyday objects until it's possible to integrate >them into your life without heroic effort (ask yourself: >why isn't every desktop computer a laptop? Why hasn't >laptop technology totally displaced desktop technology?). > >So there is huge room for improvement in hardware technology >still, and I'd certainly pay to go see someone doing it, >only no one seems to be doing it these days. > Re-reading my comment I think it's a bad edit on my part. Your right in what you say, but what I was talking about is improvements in the "mortal" technology. They are getting further along the diminishing returns line and as such fewer "mortals" are thinking about hardware, thus less interest in general. What I've seen happen with new technology is that in the past there's always the first "guinea pigs". I remember when Grand Junction came out with their early 100Mbt hubs attending a dog and pony show. I sat there and thought "this is cool stuff yes but who in the hell is Grand Junction" Most of the other tech managers there were swallowing the idea that this one product was going to make Grand Junction the new master hub vendor and the old hub companies like 3com were going to fade into the dust. They were lining up with their $20K in hand. Of course we all know what happened there. Today most of the other managers with the $20K in hand think like I did and they won't put the folding green out even if the new technology runs around the room and makes dinner for them in addition to doing what it's supposed to do. This does put the crimp in new hardware introduction because the companies that are introducing it need a lot of those $20K payments to move the hardware from the early adopter stage "heroic" to a product with some longevity. "mortal" And those $20K payments have to come from the mortals that are conned into coughing them up, because there's not enough of the "I see the new toy and I got unlimited cash to burn on it" people to finance the movement from "heroic" to "mortal" > >> And, also today, GNU and Free software is more and more important, and >> Windows and other commercial software is getting less important, and >> the new cool things in software aren't being introduced by people like >> Apple, Microsoft and IBM anymore. Instead they are being introduced by >> user communities around FreeBSD and Linux. > >I really think this is wrong. It's a nice bit of hedonism, >but the cool things aren't happening in user communities; for >the most part, they are still happening in industry and in the >academic sector. don't you consider the academic sector a user community? >There's just less money to pursue things >deemed "impractical" these days: people are increasingly >focussed on short term goals. There is less margin for having >the ability to pursue long term visions and carry them into >reality. > Actually I think that there's plenty of money out there, but the problem is that the investment community has decided that most of the technology sector can't be trusted with it. I don't blame them, the past 20 years has been shameful with how many technology people have urinated away money on ideas that were obviously stupid, and had absolutely no market research done on them to see if the man on the street would be even interested in them. Most of the technology types that ran around the last 5 years claiming to be visionaries (or paying people to write articles about how they were visionaries) were more interested in getting a foosball table in the office, and in getting on the cover of "office personnel times" with a nice article about how advanced their "no-tie-policy" was in the office. When, for example, was the last time you saw a software firm CEO in a tailored suit? (and I mean a real one, with matching pants and jacket) Most of those people regarded work as this place you go to to goof off, profitability was left to the accountants. Anyway, that crowd of technology visionaries got their asses burned off and slunk away to go sell snake oil to someone else. Now we have an industry that's got a leadership vacuum, and it's going to take another decade before the investment community trusts us with anything more than monopoly money again. Ted Mittelstaedt tedm@toybox.placo.com Author of: The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide Book website: http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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