ACM Technews snippets

[Steve Jenkin]

Summary:	http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1023w.html#item7
Article:
http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/main/0,14179,2895035,00.html
Reference:
http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/main/0,14179,2885192,00.html

Gartner are the 'thought leaders' for CIO's and IT managers.  This is
disturbing.
Where is open source in their predictions?
What about _network storage_  ie iSCSI and DAFS??
"More of the same" is ridiculous! They didn't predict 'the Internet' nor
Linux & SAMBA.
They don't address the current "IT Recession" - it's deeper & longer
than ever before. We've gone past some 'event horizon' [but what?]
It's the things from 'left field' that catch you out.

"IT Circa 2008: Spin Your Crystal Balls"
       ZDNet (10/18/02); Farber, Dan 

       Gartner Research recently unveiled its 10 predictions for
computing in the year
       2008, eliciting a number of opinions from IT-savvy readers.
Gartner predicted
       that increased network capacity will allow businesses and
consumers to draw
       their computing resources from centralized grids instead of from
local devices.
       For that to happen, however, government regulators and the
telecom industry
       are going to have to figure out how to solve the last-mile
bandwidth barrier and
       deliver more compelling broadband content. Furthermore, such a
computing
       ecosystem would require massive improvements to still-nascent
grid-computing
       software, as well as IT systems with self-healing functions.
Businesses are
       especially likely to be wary of trusting their mission-critical
operations and data
       to remote computing facilities unless fail-safe mechanisms and
better security
       are put in place. An alternative scenario would involve the
pervasive use of
       thin-client devices, but still include local storage and
processing in the picture,
       though those functions would be embedded in house and office
walls and
       delivered via WLAN connections. Gartner also said that desktop
PCs in 2008 will
       routinely feature anywhere between four to eight 40 GHz
processors, four to 12
       GB of RAM, and 1.5 TB of storage capacity. Several readers
commented that the
       abundance of computing power would not necessarily mean greater
utility for
       the end user and that software applications might not require
such resources.
       Given that manufacturers can keep up with Moore's Law by doubling
the number
       of transistors on a chip every 18 months, it does not necessarily
translate that
       users will be able to reap equally increased benefits.
-- 
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Steve Jenkin, Unix Sys Admin
PO Box 48, Kippax, ACT 2615
0412 786 915