Sun President's article: information technology will be behind the power industry !! @#

Sun President's article: information technology will be behind the power industry !! @ # -- Linux general technology-Linux programming and kernel information. For details, refer to the following section. Because Silicon Valley has survived the network bubble, leaders of high-tech enterprises love to say: IT is a mature industry, and our low growth rate will certainly be reflected in the growth of GDP.

However, the perspective of those who hold this view is narrow. Through silicon and software, you will see a much larger industry, which is ready to carry out some business based on existing technologies. What hinders the continued growth of this promising industry is not technology, but cultural differences between technology deployment and consumption. However, these differences are gradually narrowing down.

This kind of cultural difference is not exclusive to IT; we have seen IT before. Looking back at the history of many major technologies, you will find three clear stages of development: customization, standardization and popularization.

Three clear stages of development: customization, standardization, and popularization

The historian Jill Jonnes analyzed the infancy of the power industry in his book The Empire of light. She found that electricity was initially customized for customers and was very expensive. Thomas Edison had imagined that a generator was built in every district of the main city to power the bulb he had invented. (His first power plant supplied power within one square mile of New York City, serving 800 bulbs at a cost equivalent to the current $5 million .) Many theaters established in 1880s have their own generators. (A specially trained engineer is also required to operate the equipment ). Some companies even set up a "chief electric officer" to manage the company's internal electricity. (Kodak is one of the first companies to build their own power plants. It still has two thermal power plants in the New York State today, burning about 700,000 tons of coal each year .)

Do the above situations sound familiar? This is because the data centers of many companies in the United States are very large, expensive, and customized, and maintained by experts. It took many years for the electricity market to evolve to the next phase-standardization, the establishment of alternating current power supply and long-distance transmission mechanisms have promoted the establishment of power standards, which we are still using today. These standards (including voltage and frequency) allow power to enter the mass market. However, it is still a scarce resource. In 1902, only the generation of Niagara Falls was ranked fifth in the United States. In 1907, only 8% of American households had electrical appliances.

This is very similar to the current IT industry. We have developed many standards (in terms of chips, operating systems, network protocols, and so on)-computing can already go into the mass market. However, for users, IT requires a huge amount of cost and dedicated personnel for maintenance, especially in data centers of large companies.

In the third phase-in the popularization phase, electricity has been regarded as a transparent, reliable, and cost-effective commodity. In this case, electricity will truly benefit the world.

In the process of electric generation from customization to standardization to popularization, two things have taken place: its universality has increased and its cost has been greatly reduced. In addition to electric lights and industrial motors, people also invented a variety of electrical appliances, so that ordinary people can also enjoy the value of electricity.

IT is still a young industry, and we look at IT at the door of the technology popularization stage.

By 1930, medium-sized cities in the United States have also achieved the popularization of electrical appliances.

Between 1910 and 1940, the productivity of the United States increased by 300% under the impetus of daily electricity consumption. The industry has never imagined that electricity is driving so many inventions to create wealth. IT is still a young industry, and we have just begun to look at the technology popularization stage. When IT comes, network bandwidth and computing capabilities will become the same resources as electricity, it can be obtained anytime, anywhere.

Like electricity, we must establish mechanisms to define the unit and price of computing power. We must establish reliable and secure transmission mechanisms, and we also need to create something, let this kind of daily necessities enter the lives of ordinary consumers, just like electric soldering iron, washing machines and water heaters Bringing power into the home of thousands of people. As a consumer of computing power, we must also look at the role of "technology" in business and daily life from a new perspective.

The consequence of doing so is that various services that can be provided through the network will rapidly become available and popularized.

Google is an example. It has a wide range of search capabilities and is more and more user-friendly. It can also be performed on any device.

Salesforce.com also belongs to this category. It uses common network bandwidth to provide customer relationship management services, but it is much cheaper than competitors.

This is just the beginning. The future is bright for companies that use ordinary networks to provide innovative content, network services, products and their own information services. Like a lamp, it is not the end of creativity, but the beginning of a revolution.

Character biography

Jonathan schwaz is the president and chief operating officer of Sun.