[Beowulf] [gregory.brittelle at kirtland.af.mil: Re: Intel?]

[Robert G. Brown]

> However, this machine is an AMD64 based laptop from HP, that they will 
> have to pry from my cold dead fingers.  If the choice comes between 
> spending $4000 for a new laptop with about the same features, 
> functionality, and 1/2 the bits as this bad boy at $1500, versus 
> spending $300 for a new OSX to run on this bad boy, guess which one I 
> will do ...

Hey, Joe -- is it true that the AMD64 laptop will actually burn your lap
if you hold it while it is running a real computation?  That's why I
didn't get one...

BTW, why aren't you running e.g. FC on your laptop?  I'm running FC3 on
this, my brand new Dell Latitude D610.  It has everything my desktop
has.  I'm still messing with the ipw2200 wireless (intel is supporting a
linux driver, but I'm having a hard time getting linux to decide whether
the integrated device is an ordinary NIC or a PCMCIA device that has to
be "inserted").

> OSX on every laptop should be the goal.  Not OSX on Apple laptops.

Or if they actually make the price right, OSX on every system anywhere.
Ultimately this market is going to reject high margin OSs, and MOST high
margin software.  The first real corp to realize this survives, however
much it will pain them to kiss those huge margins goodbye.  Hey, if Sun
Microsystems had marketed x86 Unix (which they HAD way back in the
80's!) for $50 a seat (that is, roughly what MS was charging for >>MS
DOS<<) in the early 90's, Microsoft would be a tiny company, Apple would
be out of business, linux would never have been born, and Sun would own
the universe.  OS-2, WinXX, Apple OS all would have disappeared like a
bad dream.  If Stephen Jobs had done the same thing with NextOS in the
early 90's, HE would own the Universe.

MS has a monopoly and can charge 2x to 3x what an OS "should" cost.  Its
competitors cannot.  People will pay $30 for an OS/software distribution
and not even think about it.  At $100 up a seat, they start to think.
At $100/seat PLUS another $500 for all the software you need to actually
make your $600 computer run (Microsoft's dream is to ULTIMATELY charge
as much for software as a customer pays for hardware, right?) they
really feel the burn when the money comes out of their own pocket.

> >>All these things make me wonder if IBM will be effectively able to
> >>deliver...
> > 
> > Look at IBM's CELL partners.  Hmmm, BIG japanese chip foundries, hmmm.
> > 
> > Not so good for the USA's industrial sector, but I have faith that they
> > can deliver numbers of demand for numbers materializes, and Japan can
> > likely deliver a good chunk of the Asian market pushed by IBM.  IBM
> >>>is<< a hardware company (unlike Apple:-).  They "invented" the only PC
> > that really counts.
> 
> Actually, for the past decade, IBM has been slowly transmogrifying into 
> a services company with a small hardware division... :(   There is 
> little hard research being done at T.J. Watson anymore (and that is one 
> cool building to go to work in, so it is a bitter shame).

This sort of transmogrification is why IBM has outlived most of its
competitors by a factor of two or more.  Apple should use them as a
model.  DEC should have USED them as a model.  SGI too.  NeXT three.

Diversify.  Evolve.  Change.  It's what the IT marketplace is all about.
Anticipate the future and alter your corporation to MEET it head on, not
get left as a vulture-picked bit of road-kill crushed into the pavement
by the onrushing tires of what is coming.  Metaphorically speaking, of
course.

   rgb

> 
> 

-- 
Robert G. Brown	                       http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/
Duke University Dept. of Physics, Box 90305
Durham, N.C. 27708-0305
Phone: 1-919-660-2567  Fax: 919-660-2525     email:rgb at phy.duke.edu