Sun CEO: Information technology will follow in the footsteps of power industry

Because Silicon Valley has survived the dotcom bubble, the leaders of High-tech companies love to say: It is a mature industry, and our low growth rate will certainly be reflected in the growth of gross domestic product. But the people who hold this view are very narrow in their perspective. Through silicon and software, you will see a much larger industry that is ready to launch some business based on existing technologies. It is not technology, but the cultural divide between the deployment and consumption of technology that is hindering the growth of this promising industry, but the divergence is slowly narrowing. This cultural divide is not unique to it; we've seen it before. With a careful review of the history of many major technologies, you will find three distinct stages of development: customization, standardization and popularization. Three clear stages of development: customization, standardization and popularization the historian, Jill Jonnes, in her book The Empire of Light, analyzes the power industry's infancy. She found that the initial power was custom-oriented and very expensive. Thomas Edison had envisioned building a generator in every neighborhood in a major city to power the bulb he invented. (his first power plant, which supplies 1 square miles of New York City, was serviced by 800 light bulbs, costing the equivalent of $5 million trillion today.) Many of the theatres established in the 1880s have their own generators. (A specially trained engineer is also needed to operate these devices). Some companies even set up a "chief Electric officer", which specializes in managing electricity inside the company. (Kodak is one of the first companies to build its own power plant, and it still has two fossil-fuel plants in New York State, which burns about 700,000 tonnes of coal a year.) Does the above sound familiar? Because this is exactly what the data centers of many American companies are doing today: large, expensive, customized, and maintained by experts. It took many years for the electricity market to evolve to the next stage--standardization, the establishment of AC power and long-distance transmission mechanisms, which we are still using today. These standards (including voltage, frequency, etc.) enable electricity to go into the mass market. But it remains a scarce resource; In 1902, only Niagara Falls power generation could be ranked fifth in the United States. In the 1907, only 8% of American households had electrical appliances. This is similar to the current IT industry. We have set a number of standards (in terms of chips, operating systems, network protocols, etc.)--computing already goes to the mass market. But for now, it also needs a huge amount of expense and expertise to maintain, especially in the data centers of large companies. By the third stage-the popularization phase-electricity has been seen as a commodity of a price that is transparent and reliable, and electricity is truly beneficial to the world. In the process of power from customization to standardization to popularization, two things have happened: its universality has risen and costs have fallen dramatically. In addition to electric lights and industrial motors, people have invented all kinds of electrical appliances., so that ordinary people can also enjoy the value of electricity. It is still a young industry, we look at the technology popularization stage in the doorway to 1930 years, the United States medium-sized cities have achieved the popularity of electrical appliances. Between 1910 and 1940, American productivity grew by 300% per cent, driven by daily electricity. Industry has never before thought that electricity is driving so many inventions that create wealth. It is still a young industry, we have just begun to look at the technology popularization stage, and so after the real entrance, the network bandwidth and computing power will become the same as the power of resources, anytime and anywhere available. As with electricity, we must establish mechanisms to define the units and prices of computing power, we must establish reliable and safe delivery mechanisms, and we need to create something that allows this commodity to enter the lives of ordinary consumers, just as electric irons, washing machines and water heaters bring power into the thousands. As consumers of computing power, we must also look at the role of "technology" in business and everyday life in a new light. The consequence of this is that all sorts of services that can be delivered through the web will emerge quickly and become commonplace. Google is an example, it has a wide range of search capabilities, and search more user-friendly, but also on any device. Salesforce.com is also part of this class, which provides customer relationship management services using common network bandwidth, but prices are much cheaper than competitors. It's just the beginning. The future is bright for companies that use ordinary networks to provide innovative content, Web services, products, and proprietary information services. It's like the electric lamp, it's not an end of the idea, it's the beginning of a revolution. Biography of the author Jonathanschwartz is the president and chief operating officer of Sun Corporation.