In a recent post to Joan, someone (who will go unnamed) indicated that I have been overstating the importance of I2O, referencing a link to a post I made early last year. I thought to myself, "What outlandish things did I say way back then?"
Well, let's look at what I said then, and judge how far off I was. The following is what was posted on March 1, 1966:
>The analyst conference call this morning was glowing.
>In particular, the I2O development with Intel was much
>discussed and looks fantastic.
>Microsoft apparently will be jumping all over I2O to make
>its NT servers capable of handling high levels of I/O.
>I am sure they love the notion of mainframe level performance
>when competing against Unix servers. Also, Novell will have to
>quickly implement I2O in an attempt to stay competitive.
>The big money this year will come from Intel essentially boxing
>PC peripheral makers into buying WRS tools. Later, what
>they produce will all generate royalites to WRS.
>Probably next year or so, desktop computers will begin
>sporting I2O, ultimately on the motherboard.
I2O looked fantastic then, and looks better today - it even looks like Sun and the rest of the Unix community will be incorporating I2O, since Sun recently joined the I2O-SIG.
I believe that Microsoft will be jumping all over I2O as I indicated above. Novell is an active I2O-SIG member, and I suspect has big plans for I2O, although I admit I'm not paying much attention to Novell today.
The big money in 1996 did come from selling Wind River tools, and royalties will come at some later point. WIND has profited tremendously already from its I2O involvement, in more ways than be counted. We now know that production volume of I2O chips will begin in the 4th quarter of this year, with associated payments to WIND next year.
Finally, as noted recently on this thread, I2O will begin showing up on desktop, as well as server, motherboards next year.
In other words, every single word I wrote in March 1996 is still true today, but I did make one very big mistake a year and a half ago, for which I apologize. I clearly understated the importance of I2O to WIND and to the computing world.
Allen |
