
Software companies are building their way to a very material future - davidw
http://technology.guardian.co.uk/opinion/story/0,,2112850,00.html
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enriketuned
I don't think that you can generalize it the way he did. Sure Yahoo, Google,
MS and Amazon are building huge data-centers. That's what makes it into the
news. And yes there is a lot more processing to be done since we started to
see wide spread use of applications (social networking, search, storage,
video, etc...) in the Web opposed to the former mere HTML plus some e-commerce
routines here and there. But on the other hand, a lot of software is not
physically shipped anymore, and I think this trend will continue. More
important, you have things going on like Akamai, and Amazon's S3. I would
therefore argue for the exact opposite: Unless your Google or MS, it will
probably not make any sense running your own data-centers. My guess is that we
will see the creation of more S3 and Akamai-like products. Software companies
will develop software but it will not be physically shipped, nor in most cases
be self hosted. Specialized companies will due to the economies of scale be
much more efficient at that. Software companies will be more lightweight. They
create the software and nothing more. Just my personal analysis.

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zach
When you look at the "network computer" idea, it always made sense, but so
many of its proponents just saw it the wrong way.

They figured that the server network would be much bigger, smarter and more
distributed than individuals' computers. Sure. Makes sense.

So they went to work dumbing down PCs. Oops. They should have bet on the
advancement of server network systems, not the regression of desktop
technology.

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henning
"Instead, we're tapping into programs that are delivered through our web
browsers. ... World of Warcraft ..."

Hooray for uninformed journalism.

