Computing Laws Computer Industry Laws, Forces, and Heuristics… Or, Why computers are like they are and are likely to be. Gordon Bell

Computing Laws Outline Inventions, forces & laws – The two great inventions: Computer & IC – The force, quest and drive of cyberization – Resulting computer classes and their supporting industries – The market support that drives it all Technology to define new classes Some inevitable new computer classes

Computing Laws The two great inventions The computer (1946). Computers supplement and substitute for all other info processors, including humans – Computers are built from other computers in a recursive fashion – Processors, memories, switching, and transduction are the primitives The Transistor (1946) and subsequent Integrated Circuit (1957). – Computers are composed of a set of well- defined hardware-software levels

Computing Laws Region/Intranet Campus Home… buildings buildings Body World Continent Everything cyberizable will be in Cyberspace and covered by a hierarchy of computers! Fractal Cyberspace: a network of … networks of … platforms Cars… phys. nets

Computing Laws Cyberization: interface to all bits and process information Coupling to all information and information processors Pure bits e.g. printed matter Bit tokens e.g. money State: places, things, and people State: physical networks

Computing Laws Vannevar Bush c1945 There will always be plenty of things to compute... With millions of people doing complicated things. memex … stores all his books, records, and communications, and... can be consulted with speed and flexibility Matchbook sized, $.05 encyclopedia Speech to text Head mounted camera, dry photography

Computing Laws Transistor density doubles every 18 months 60% increase per year – Chip density transistors/die – Micro processor speeds Exponential growth: – The past does not matter – 10x here, 10x there … means REAL change PC costs decline faster than any other platform – Volume and learning curves – PCs are the building bricks of all future systems Moores First Law

Computing Laws Computer components must all evolve at the same rate Amdahls law: one instruction per second requires one byte of memory and one bit per second of I/O Processor speed has evolved at 60% Storage evolves at 60% Wide Area Network speed evolves at 60% Local Area Network speed evolved 26-60% Groves Law: Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS) thwarts speed, evolving at 14%!

Computing Laws Bells law of computer class formation to cover Cyberspace New computer platforms emerge based on chip density evolution Computer classes require new platforms, networks, and cyberization New apps and content develop around each new class Each class becomes a vertically disintegrated industry based on hardware and software standards

Computing Laws Bells Evolution Of Computer Classes Technology enables two evolutionary paths: 1. constant performance, decreasing cost 2. constant price, increasing performance 1.26 = 2x/3 yrs -- 10x/decade; 1/1.26 = = 4x/3 yrs --100x/decade; 1/1.6 =.62 Mini ?? Time Mainframes (central) PCs (personals) Log price WSs

Computing Laws Platform, Interface, & Network Computer Class Enablers NetworkInterfacePlatform The Computer Mainframe tube, core, drum, tape, batch O/S direct > batch Mini & Timesharing SSI-MSI, disk, timeshare O/S terminals via commands POTS PC/WS micro, floppy, disk, bit-map display, mouse, distd O/S WIMP LAN Web browser, telecomputer, tv computer PC, scalable servers, Web, HTML Internet

Computing Laws Future Computer Classes

Computing Laws Price, performance, and class of various goods & services Computer price = $10 x 10 class# Computer weight =.05 x 10 class# Car price = $6K x 1.5 class # Transportation artifact prices = k x $10 type (shoes,...cars,... trains,... ICBMs) French Restaurants(t='95) = f(ambiance, location) x $25 x 1.5 stars

Computing Laws Bells Nine Computer Price Tiers Super server: costs more than $100,000 Mainframe: costs more than $1 million an array of processors, disks, tapes, comm ports 1$: embeddables e.g. greeting card 10$: wrist watch & wallet computers 100$:pocket/ palm computers 1,000$:portable computers 10,000$: personal computers (desktop) 100,000$: departmental computers (closet) 1,000,000$:site computers (glass house) 10,000,000$:regional computers (glass castle) 100,000,000$:national centers

Computing Laws 1OM 1M 100K 10K 1K Handhld game Home PC Palm top PT program. Notebook/Laptop Desktop PC Prof. Workstation Super WS Scalable Multi- Minicomputer Large, Scalable Mini-super Mainframe Supercomputer Video game Wallet PDA/Camera Computer Classes = Scalables, built from PCs and SANS VCVC TV C TC

Computing Laws Groves Law of Dis-integration A Horizontal Computer Industry Horizontal integration is new structure Each layer picks best from lower layer All layers run // Desktop (C/S) market – 1991: 50% – 1995: 75% Intel & Seagate Silicon & Oxide Systems Baseware Middleware Applications SAP Oracle Microsoft Compaq Integration EDS Operation AT&T Function Example

Computing Laws Computer Industry 1982 SolutionsApplicationsOSComputersProcessors IBMIBMDECDECHPHPNCRNCR

Computing Laws Consult Apps Dbases OS Network Periph Computers Micros Solutions Andersen, EDS, KPMG, Lante, etc. Microsoft, Lotus, WordPerfect, etc. Microsoft, Apple, Sun, Novell Comshare, D&B, PeopleSoft, SAP HP, Canon, Lexmark, Seagate Novell, Microsoft, Banyan IBM, Compaq, DEC, Apple, many others Intel, AMD, Motorola, others Informix, Ingres, Oracle, Sybase,etc. Informix, Ingres, Oracle, Sybase,etc. EDS, FDC, BTG, API, DataFocus, HFSI Computer Industry 1995

Computing Laws Economics-based laws determine the market Demand: doubles as price declines by 20% Learning curves: 10-15% cost decline with 2X units Bills Law for the economics of PC software Nathans Laws of Software -- the virtuous circle Metcalfes Law of the value of a network

Computing Laws Software Economics: Bills Law Bill Joys law (Sun): dont write software for <100,000 million engineering expense, $1,000 price Bill Gates law: dont write software for <1,000,000 engineering expense, $100 price Examples: – UNIX versus Windows NT: $3,500 versus $500 – Oracle versus SQL-Server: $100,000 versus $6,000 – No spreadsheet or presentation pack on UNIX/VMS/... Commoditization of base software and hardware Price Fixed_cost Marginal _cost = Units +

Computing Laws Innovation The Virtuous Economic Cycle that drives the PC industry Volume Competition Standards Utility/value

Computing Laws Nathans Laws of software 1. Software is a gas. It expands to fill the container it is in 2. Software grows until it becomes limited by Moores Law 3. Software growth makes Moores Law possible 4. Software is only limited by human ambition and expectation …GB: and our ability to cyberize I.e. encode

Computing Laws Platform Economics Computer type Mainframe WSBrowser Price (K$) Volume (K) Application price Traditional computers: custom or semi-custom, high-tech and high-touch New computers: high-tech and no-touch

Computing Laws Metcalfs Law Network Utility = Users 2 How many connections can it make? – 1 user: no utility – 100,000 users: a few contacts – 1 million users: many on Net – 1 billion users: everyone on Net That is why the Internet is so hot – Exponential benefit

Computing Laws Capac. (svc & response) The Virtuous Cycle that drives the BW quest Application innovation User demand Internet (IP) ubiquity Excess capac. -->>BW

Computing Laws Applicatio ns Databases OS Switching Computers DSP Processor s Microsoft, Delrina, many others Microsoft, Apple, Sun, Novell, LINUX Ericsson, Aspect, Nortel, Octel, others Dialogic, NMS, Rhetorex, others Ericsson, Nortel, Bay, 3Com, Fore, others Compaq, DEC, Dell, IBM, many others Intel, AMD, Motorola, others Informix, Microsoft, Oracle, Sybase, others Informix, Microsoft, Oracle, Sybase, others Future Telecom Industry

Computing Laws Software economics… standards for operating systems and databases

Computing Laws Software Economics An engineer costs about $150K/year R&D gets [5%…15%] of budget Need [$3 million… $1 million] revenue per engineer Microsoft: $9 billion R&D16% SG&A34% Product and Service 13% Tax13% Profit24% Intel: $16 billion R&D8% SG&A 11% P&S47% Tax 12% Profit 22%R&D8% SG&A22% P&S59%Tax5% Profit6% IBM: $72 billion R&D9% SG&A 43% Tax7% Profit15% P&S26% Oracle: $3 billion

Computing Laws Value of software per $ of product price vs volume/yr specialty Server & Mainframe Workstation PC K10K100K1M10M 10M 1M 100K 10K 1K

Computing Laws Economics of an Operating System An O/S cost $150 m/yr to maintain &evolve 10%-15% COS can be spent or R&D, can be reduced by 3X by off-shore engineering The selling price for software needs to be billion. For a high volume producer of 500K units, the selling price needs to be $2,000 - $3,000! Bottom Line Platforms sold in 10 million unit quantities win cost Platform vendors must give away software PCs are at performance par with five vanity micros Platform vendors cant sustain vanity O/S & micros

Computing Laws The UNIX Trap: the myth of open systems Standard UNIX is an oxymoron Standard now means different! VendorIX platforms have created the downsizing market that provides an apparent, order of magnitude cost reduction Hardware platform vendors lock-in users with servers of proprietary UNIX dialects and unique chips to maintain margins for chip and UNIX development Users hostage with client-server, database, and apps An implicit or unconscious cartel forms that maintains the industry status quo

Computing Laws Hardware technology: processing, memory, networking, and new interfaces enable the new computers

Computing Laws 1. We get more

Computing Laws 2. New overtakes old

Computing Laws 3. Things get cheaper

Computing Laws 4. Newer & cheaper wins? Old New New

Computing Laws 1. We get more

Computing Laws Some changes by Mbit (32 Mbyte chip with computer) LSI Logic is System on a chip co. – 64 M gates (>100 M transistors) today – Embeddable, low cost products (e.g. cameras, instruments) with processing, memory, net, I/O Mbit bandwidth will be like ISDN today New networks will form to ferry us amongh the Islands of Cyberspace – PC, phone, fax (unfortunately), pager, radio/cell phone, home stuff, info appliances Cerf: IP on everything.

Computing Laws Tera Giga Mega Kilo Extrapolation from 1950s: 20-30% growth per yearStorage Backbone Memory Processing Telephone Service 17% / year ??

Computing Laws National Semiconductor Technology Roadmap (size)

Computing Laws National Storage Technology Roadmap (size, density, speed)

Computing Laws Communication rate(t) in log 10 (Kbps) POTS WAN LAN SAN/backpanels 1 Mb 1 Gb 1 Kb ??? 17%/year ISDN

Computing Laws Microprocessor performance 100 G 10 G Giga 100 M 10 M Mega Kilo Peak Advertised Performance (PAP) Moores Law Real Applied Performance (RAP) 41% Growth

Computing Laws Gains if 20, 40, & 60% / year 1.E+21 1.E+18 1.E+15 1.E+12 1.E +9 1.E %= Teraops 40%= Petaops 60%= Exaops

Computing Laws New overtakes old

Computing Laws Processor performance… also for mainframes and supers RISC shift CMOS microprocessor Bipolar processors VAX 9000

Computing Laws Things get cheaper

Computing Laws Exponential change of 10X per decade causes real turmoil! $K MB 1 MB 256 KB 64 KB 16 KB Timeshared systems Single-user systems

Computing Laws VAX Planning Model 1975: I didnt believe it The model was very good – 1978 timeshared $250K VAXen cost about $8K in 1997! Costs declined > 20% – users get more memory than predicted Single user systems didnt come down as fast, unless you consider PDAs VAX ran out of address bits!

Computing Laws Newer & cheaper always wins? … if it werent for the Law of Intertia Old New New

Computing Laws The mainframe is dead! … and for sure this time! PRICEPRICE Mainframe Server PC

Computing Laws The law of data and program inertia sustains platforms! The investment in programs and processes to use them, and data exceed hardware costs The cost to switch among platforms e.g. IBM mainframe, VMS, a VendorIX, or Windows/NT is determined by the data and programs The goal of hardware suppliers is uniqueness to differentiate and lock-in The goals of software/database suppliers are: to differentiate and lock-in and operate on as many platforms as possible in order to be not tied to a hardware vendor

Computing Laws Will the need for high volume, higher performance micros aka PCs continue? Speech... but some of that power will be embedded in appliances Video requires extra-ordinary power, especially to understand Video servers! The explosion of stored everything e.g. photos, voice, video, requires more memory and processing

Computing Laws Its the near-term platforms, stupid! (multimedia is finally happening) Text & 2D graphics -->> images, voice, & video The WEB: being anywhere and doing anything Disk sizes and cost c1998 – $ / GB – 4 GB standard; CD-R; and GB magneto-optic R/W Document, picture, and video capture and compression – 10,000 to 250,000 pages / GB; 10,000 pictures / GB – books / GB or $ / book – Plethora of Video & digital cameras everywhere! Voice and video compression* – 250 hours / GB voice – Stamp size-VHS: hours / GB; DVD / HDTV: 0.5 hr / GB Audio: Surround sound that is part of V-places Ubiquitous access: NetPC, WebTV, web & videophones *Because theres limited bandwidth!

Computing Laws What if could or when can we store everything weve: read/written, heard, and seen?

Computing Laws Vannevar Bush c1945 There will always be plenty of things to compute... With millions of people doing complicated things. memex … stores all his books, records, and communications, and... can be consulted with speed and flexibility Matchbook sized, $.05 encyclopedia Speech to text Head mounted camera, dry photography

Computing Laws

All those photos

Computing Laws 10X in 40 years (6% per year)

Computing Laws Library Volume Growth 10X in 150 years

Computing Laws Some bits at Library of Congress Scanned LC1PB assumes 6B pages 13M photos13TB 4M maps200TB 500K movies500TB 3.5M recordings2,000TB 5 Bpeople or 2 GB per person

Computing Laws Other bits per year Cinema5K200TB Images (all)52G520PB Broadcast1500st200/10PB Recordings100K60TB Telephone500Gmin400PB videotape???

Computing Laws Estimate of 1998 storage ships Disks25B250PB Raid 13B 65PB Optical 0.5B 25PB Jukebox 5B250PB Tape 10B10,000PB -10EB Tape stack 2B2000PB - 2EB

Computing Laws

Static information storage sizes Documentsimagecompressed#/GB business card5 K500200K;2M page or fax100 K4K10K;250K snapshot3 M100 K10, page book25 M2 M 40;500 4 drawer file 20Kp100M10M10;100

Computing Laws Storing all weve read, heard, & seen Human data-types /hr/day (/4yr)/lifetime read text, few pictures200 K M/G G speech 43 K 0.5 M/G 15 G 3.6 M 40 M/G1.2 T video-like 50Kb/s POTS 22 M.25 G/T 25 T video 200Kb/s VHS-lite 90 M1 G/T100 T video 4.3Mb/s HDTV/DVD 1.8 G20 G/T 1 P

Computing Laws Some future computers and networks

Computing Laws Some predictable computers, networks, & industries Something NON-predictable System-on-a-chip industry, including WINS (Wireless Integrated Network of Sensors) Digital still and video cameras Dis-integrated telephony (gateways, IP dialing) The nc (NC for LANs, WebTV, WebPhone) Videophones become ubiquitous Scalable Network And Platforms Telework & Home Area Nets: homes, SoHos Body Area Nets: on body, Guardian Angel

Computing Laws 2001 and the web will be about as it is today…NOT Bet: At least some appliance will be available and selling at the rate of 2M units per year averaged over the last quarter of 2000 will have been introduced that no one has predicted at no 1997 conference about the future of the Internet, excluding cameras, television, and telephones that access the web.

Computing Laws Larry Ellison: NCs will outsell PCs 9:1 by NCs include those embedded in TV sets, phones, and used as PC alternatives. Bet: While the combined set of computers connected to the web (e.g. instruments, cameras, tv sets, appliances, printers, phones) may be greater than pure PCs, the number of person-driven access devices that are NOT PCs will be less than 1:1 by the end of 2000.

Computing Laws A New Computer Class will form to access the net & communicate Will it be a stateless or diskless (I.e. dumb, Xterm/ Winterm, diskless or disky)? If it run programs, what environment? – PC with OLE et al or Java xx – Is it cheaper than the PC? – Is it less costly and easier to maintain such that the market will be much larger? – Where are programs stored, given low bandwidth between Internet and homes? – Or, is it just for LANs or fast networks? Is it just a lower cost PC?

Computing Laws SNAP: Scalable Networks and Platforms Standard (I.e. commodity) hardware SAN (System Area Network) alternatives Common operating system for platform, reducing vendor and customer costs Cluster technology

Computing Laws Scaling dimensions include: reliability… including always up number of nodes – most cost-effective system built from best nodes… PCs with NO backplane – highest throughput distributes disks to each node versus into a single node location within a region or continent time-scale I.e. machine generations

Computing Laws SNAP Systems circa ­ 2000 Local & global data comm world ATM & Ethernet: PC, workstation, & servers Wide-area global ATM network Legacy mainframe & minicomputer servers & terminals Centralized & departmental servers built from PCs scalable computers built from PCs + CAN TC=TV+PC home... (CATV or ATM or satellite) ??? Portables A space, time (bandwidth), generation, and reliability scalable environment Person servers (PCs) Mobile Nets Telecomputers aka Internet Terminals

Computing Laws Do any hardware systems vendors with proprietary microprocessors and O/Ss see the change? Probably not. The web business is masking it!

Computing Laws Telework = work + telepresence being there while being here The teleworkplace is just an office with limited – Communication, computer, and network support! – Team interactions for work! Until we understand in situ collaboration, CSCW is a rat hole! – Serendipitous social interaction in hallway, office coffee place, meeting room, etc. – Administrative support for helping, filing, sending, etc. Telepresentations and communication Computing environment … being always there, administrivia, phones, information (especially paper) management SOHOs & COMOHOs is a high growth market

Computing Laws Teleworking CW 9/1/97 15% 2 yr increase, 11 Mpeople, avg. 19 Hr/wk 50% in U.S.; 22% have policies on screening, worker expectations, IP etc. protection, liability Are telecommuters more productive? – 30% yes – 50% same – 4% no – 16% dont know Are telecommuters more accessible? – 13% yes – 40% same – 40% more – 7% dont know

Computing Laws Steve Mann in Cyberspace

Computing Laws CMU wearable computers

Computing Laws Medtronics Implanted Cardioplastic

Computing Laws The growth of the computer industry (Gordons swag 12/97) Machine class Handheld/mobile>>>> PC (portables)>>>> PC (desktop)=>== Telecomputer-->>> Network Computer-->>> TC (TV Computer)nana>>>> Workstation==<< VendorIX server>>>=< Mainframe<<<<< Super=<<<< Scalable PCs=>>>>> = 0-10%, >10-20%, >> 20-30%; < -10%