<<Therefore, It will be.>> Make it so.
The following is part of an on going e-mail correspondence I have
had with a buddy of mine. It was written in Aug of this year. The
root of the e-mail was started in April when I was telling him that I
thought we were seeing a market top in the making, and when I
though the market would turn around and what was going to drive
the turn around (GIG CPUs, RDRAM, HDTV--PC/TVs xDSL--faster Internet connections for the masses)in the PC
industry and for that matter the whole high tech industry.
<<Subj: WOW its going to happen--All this speed is very good for RMBS
Date: 97-08-01 00:48:12 EDT
From: GMullineau
To: Roger n co
Do you remember when I sent you this? April 3 of this year.
<< <Jump to winter 1999 people are starting to get excited about the turn of the century The internet is three time faster,HDTV is out, and low end PCs are running at 400Mhz. You might not even know where the PC begins and the TV ends. Top of the line PC/TVs are running at close to GIG. So I am calling the turn to happen in the winter of 1999>> ....I hope I am off a year so but I don't think so...
July 28, 1997
The Road To 2000
Microsoft and Intel are ramping up for rapid-fire product rollouts
By Tom Davey and Stuart J. Johnston
Discuss this story at InformationWeek Online Shop Talk
<Picture: T>ake a deep breath. Microsoft and Intel are accelerating their already lightning-fast product-rollout schedules in a bid to extend their client-server dominance into the next millennium. It's a pace that will have even the most prepared IT departments scrambling to keep up.
At two separate briefings last week, Microsoft outlined its product road map for the coming year and beyond. Among the highlights: Microsoft promised that the next version of Windows NT Workstation and Server would cut in half the total cost of owning PCs; it detailed plans to make its DOS-based Windows client platform more like NT; it outlined its goals and expectations for thin clients; and company executives even glanced beyond 1998, when such capabilities as natural-language recognition could make the operating system much easier to use.
Intel, meanwhile, is ready to unload a fusillade of powerful processors that will culminate in the company's first 1,000-MHz processor, called Flagstaff, due in 2000. In the interim, new processors for servers, desktops, and notebooks will support operating systems and applications from a host of vendors that chew up more Mips.
Unprecedented Pace
Intel will be cranking out new generations of chips over the next two years, beginning in September with the rollout of a smaller and cooler-running version of the Pentium, called Tillamook. Designed mainly for notebooks, it will ship in 200-MHz and 233-MHz versions. Expect to see by December ultra-lightweight notebooks based on the chip from Asian manufacturers. Early next year, a 266-MHz version of Tillamook will be available. Also in early 1998, high-end notebooks will be equipped with a smaller version of the Pentium II, called Deschutes. The chip will debut at 300 MHz and should hit 400 MHz in 1999. Exhale.
Deschutes will let notebook makers include other high-performance features such as a built-in secondary cache. An accelerated graphics port will quadruple the bandwidth for processing 3-D instructions. Synchronous DRAM will offer a performance boost of up to 10% over standard memory. And "error-correction code" memory could be used to ensure data integrity in complex financial and engineering calculations, a feature now available in servers and workstations.
But the computing power of Intel's products will spike as early as next summer with the introduction-a year ahead of industry expectations-of the first of two versions of Intel's closely guarded 64-bit Merced chip. Merced, a multichip module developed with Hewlett-Packard, will advance the Intel architecture in terms of raw speed (one version will premier at 600 MHz) and overall performance. Like most other Intel chips, in its initial version Merced will be used in high-end servers. According to Ashok Kumar, an analyst with investment firm Southcoast Capital Corp. in Austin, Texas, Merced will include a choice of 2 Mbytes or 4 Mbytes of secondary cache and will sell for about $5,000-unusually pricey for a new Intel processor.
A less powerful version of Merced will be available in higher volumes in late 1998 for workstations. Like the first Pentium II chip, it separates the secondary cache from the CPU but delivers the cached data at half the speed. This chip will sell for about $1,000.
Merced will be followed in 2000 by Flagstaff. Flagstaff chips will be the first built using a process that creates much smaller, 0.18-micron-wide circuits, which will allow Intel to build smaller and faster chips in greater volume to ensure corporate customers a reliable supply of PCs. There will be two versions of Flagstaff, each with a choice of 4 Mbytes or 8 Mbytes of secondary cache.
Overly Ambitious?
Microsoft's road map for the company's flagship products, Windows NT and Windows 95, threatens to strain the company's marketing reach and technical expertise.
The next version of Windows NT, version 5.0, will let IT managers cut the total cost of owning PCs by 50% over current administration cost figures, Microsoft officials claim. NT 5.0, which will start testing in late September at Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference in San Diego, is due to ship in the first half of next year, though several industry analysts think it will slip into the second half.
The catch: Ownership cost benefits will be available only to users who move to both NT Server 5.0 and NT Workstation 5.0, because those systems will completely implement all the features of Microsoft's Zero Administration Windows (ZAW) initiative, says Jim Allchin, senior VP of personal and business systems. While Windows 98 will support a subset of ZAW, only NT Workstation 5.0 will link into NT Server 5.0's ZAW capabilities completely. Additionally, Microsoft has been working with Intel to ensure that NT 5.0 will take advantage of the Merced chip's 64-bit addressing.
Later this year, Microsoft will launch a small-business version of its BackOffice server suite, which will include Windows NT Server and will be easy to install, says Paul Maritz, Microsoft group VP of applications and platforms.
Early next year, Microsoft plans to ship a multiuser capability for Windows NT Server 4.0 that provides a centralized server to host Windows applications for Windows Terminals. Those terminals will be based on Windows CE, an operating system Microsoft plans to embed in everything from handheld PCs to television set-top boxes and cars.
The Windows Terminal strategy is Microsoft's attempt to fend off encroachment by network computers, thin-client products touted by Sun Microsystems, IBM, and Oracle. Still, Microsoft executives say they don't expect the NC market to become very large anytime soon. By 2000, the company expects the total NC market, including Windows Terminals, will amount to only 2% of all client systems shipped. The majority of client systems sold-81%-will be full-fledged PCs running 32-bit versions of Windows, either Windows 9x or NT Workstation, Microsoft maintains.
In the next two months, Microsoft plans to ship the Enterprise Editions of NT Server 4.0 and SQL Server 6.5. If these products take off, as Microsoft expects, they could also provide an engine for growth as corporate customers replace large systems with distributed networks of PC-class machines. Says Microsoft chairman Bill Gates: "It's just a question of when the PC architecture overwhelms all other architectures."
The successors to Windows 95 are being moved out of the corporate mainstream. Windows 98, due to ship early next year, is to be more stable, easier to manage, more Internet- friendly-and better suited to supporting games and home-entertainment software-than earlier versions. This evolution indicates Microsoft's intent to position Windows 98 for the consumer market. Also, Microsoft executives say they don't expect Windows 98 to be the explosive success that Windows 95 was.
The next major release of Windows after Windows 98, due before the turn of the century, will finally jettison Windows' aging DOS underpinnings and replace them with NT's microkernel technology, Microsoft executives say. The upshot: All Windows applications must be NT-compliant.
Further out, beyond NT 5.0 and Windows 98, Microsoft aims to make it easier for people to use the operating system. With a "scenario-based user interface," the screen would be simplified, with very few buttons or icons. For instance, the user might be presented with menu options for various types of documents and the system's functionality would change depending on what kind of document is chosen.
Other plans include support for natural language, letting systems actually understand the meaning of words that users type, and then respond accordingly. For instance, the system might contain a search engine that could understand the meaning and context of questions and locate information on the Internet or in the system's help files that more closely correspond to the user's search criteria.
Bring It On
Those users moving forward with the Wintel architecture say they're willing to manage the fast pace and aren't threatened by Microsoft's and Intel's increasing market clout. "I'm not concerned that these Wintel products are making this onslaught into the land of proprietary and Unix systems," says Bill Bone, VP of strategic technology services at the National Association of Securities Dealers in Rockville, Md. In fact, he says, the competition is helping drive the cost per transaction below the $100 mark.
Chevron Information Technology Co. in San Ramon, Calif., had committed to deploying Windows 95 on all its desktops but instead will move almost entirely to NT Workstation 4.0 on desktops and notebooks beginning early next year. "Our goal is to reduce the total cost of ownership, and we're going to be implementing principles and policies across the corporation," says Mike Wolfe, network software engineer at the company. "We're looking to Microsoft to provide us with the tools."
But Microsoft can't reduce TCO on its own, Wolfe adds. "What's going to reduce the total cost of ownership is going to be the hardware vendors and Intel working with Microsoft," he says.
One Windows NT user says Microsoft's road map does little to help his company keep up. "I do believe the known scalability of Unix would have been nice to have," says Gary Richardson, CIO of Texaco Star Enterprises in Houston, which converted much of its business operations to NT over the past two years. "It's not there with NT, and we didn't think that we would have to have it."
If there's a flaw in Intel's strategy, it's this: While microprocessor performance doubles every 18 months, telecommunications and networking infrastructures lag behind. Witness Intel's own efforts over the past few years to make its ProShare videoconferencing system ubiquitous in offices; the program has received only lukewarm response.
Both companies are also hedging their bets on the network computer. Intel CEO Andrew Grove held meetings last spring with Oracle CEO Larry Ellison to discuss how Intel, one of the principals behind the NetPC, could play a role in the development of NCs. Microsoft would already have a presence with Windows NT, but is also developing its portable Windows CE strategy for thin clients.
To prepare for the next two years, IT managers riding the client-server model had better buckle their seat belts.
I suggest you file this baby for reference. I know I am.
Greg >>
Now it's up to the EEs and standard bodies to make it happen sooner.
Greg |
