FC has the potential to make the cut..it has the engineering backing, it just needs business and marketing talent. I have not read G. Gilder's list... but I'm not surprised that FC isn't on anyones list.. it doesn't have any marketing hype yet. That's just as well for the long run. ATM and Gigabit Ethernet have the hype but nowhere near the potential of Fibre Channel.
In 1972 Matt Biewer and I decided to found Pro-Log to support the microprocessor. At the time most "experts" were writing debunking articles about this new technology. In September of 72 we went to a top official at Intel (name to remain undisclosed)and told him we were starting a company based on the microprocessor. His response was "You're nuts! There's not more than 1000 customers for microprocessors, and we already know who they are." (At the time Intel considered itself a memory company.)
In marketing and business seminars, I outline my reasons for being excited about the potential for Fibre Channel. I also continue to scour the horizons for potential technical alternatives for a universal digital communications technology... a single serial technology that can operate seemlessly from inside the box (i.e. the successor to the PCI bus), local I/O (successor to USB and SCSI), LANs (successor to Ethernet) and WANs. Fibre Channel, (albeit with more engineering, fat trimming, and the evolution of CMOS technology to .18 micron cell sizes and smaller) has the technical potential to do that, just as Intel's 4004 heralded the technical potential of todays Microsoft/Intel Standards.
A point to remember is that FC is a system's solution...not just a transport layer. It has a framework metaphorically equivalent to the Intel CPU, Awards BIOS, and Microsoft's Operating System! It's FC-4 layer is equivalent to APIs in microprocessor software. This framework is ambitious and complex....and its evolution is thus far slow and painful, in part because the efforts are diffused among many companies. Many of the participating companies aren't particularly interested in the strategic potential,they need revenue and profits in the next few quarters. Some experts in the FC community even reject FC's strategic potential. But as far as I can see, the potential remains, and no other data communications technology has even begun to address the strategic need for a universal, seamless data communications solution. |
