Linus Torvalds summed it up in
his interview with EFYtimes:
Q: The last I heard, you were using a PPC G4/5 for your main personal machine -- what are you using now, and why?
Linus: I ended up giving up on the PowerPC, since nobody is doing any workstations any more, and especially since x86-64 has become such an undeniable powerhouse. So these days, I run a bog-standard PC, with a normal Core 2 Duo on it.
It was a lot of fun to run another architecture (I ran with alpha as my main architecture way back then, for a few years, so it wasn't the first time either), but commodity CPUs is where it is at. The only thing that I think can really ever displace the x86 architecture would come from below, i.e., if something makes us not use x86 as our main ISA in a decade, I think it would be ARM, thanks to the mobile device market.Of course, Linus was referring to a
personal machine vs. the near hysteria set-off by the virtual desktop future VMware has all ready for us. VMware (Public, NYSE:VMW -
varoom! - now trading at $65+) is the dominant company in server virtualization software, creating many “virtual servers” from one physical server (or aggregating several physical servers into one virtual server). VMware’s hypervisor (software which communicates directly to computer hardware bypassing the host operating system) has been well received, but VMware’s strongest position rests in its suite of management tools (e.g. dynamic resource management, live migration) that work on top of its hypervisor. The server virtualization market is barely penetrated. Only 5% of x86 servers used virtualization in 2005, and is expected to grow to 15% or more by 2010. Microsoft has Viridian coming (
now delayed until 2008). Congratulations to VMware on their very successful IPO. They collected an impressive amount of money and they are the buzz. Of course, the really smart folks are running EMC Corporation (Public, NYSE:EMC) - EMC owns 86% of VMW. BTW, you can see the EFIKA Open Client running VMWare (
Demo #1,
Demo #2) and you are welcome to give the
VDI Total Cost of Ownership Calculator a try - we have been there and done that.
Before we come back to the main topic, we should look at what is really driving this market. Basically, here is the headliner:
Infrastructure vs. Apps. Guess what? VMware is not in the title fight. The players are bigger. The mainframe is back.
As Wall Street terms it, IBM (Public, NYSE:IBM) remains committed to being an infrastructure only play. The infrastructure market opportunity is sized by some at nearly $100 billion and growing (6-8% per annum). As the shift to infrastructure continues (applications drive infrastructure and customers will always purchase software from several vendors instead of one) IBM expects "partner fallout" in bridging the gap to apps as being significant and lo, there we have it: IBM's host middleware business which are their SOA solution enablers - more customers using fewer applications. Virtualization yields efficiencies in servers, storage, and the software stack. We are headed back to mainframes. Inertia is easy when you are the market. It really is no surprise the Solaris-bigots at IBM have finally been overcome. Services and Software drive IBM's business. Microelectronics has actually been losing money -
believe it or not weak game processor demand is a problem.
All that said, it would not surprise us if IBM did buy Wind River (Public, NASDAQ:WIND). The old Mercury Interactive management team that transformed Wind River from a "a leading supplier of embedded software and services for embedded systems" (2003, 10K) to a "global leader in Device Software Optimization" (2007, 10K) has recently been complimented by a new CFO who was a transition executive in IBM's Tivoli Software unit (from Micromuse and prior to that Microvision, Sun and OpenTV -
impressive). Wind River
DSO solutions combine an Eclipse-based development suite, a choice of operating systems, industry-specific middleware, device management software and a set of validated hardware and software partner technologies to offer device manufacturers, scalable commercial off the shelf software development platforms. These solutions enable device development and include the operating system distributed with the devices. Freescale could have done that (
still could - aura is System Enablement designed for Application Ready Silicon). The advantage in Wind River is that they cover all the instruction set architectures. They are processor agnostic and their
Wind River Linux based business is growing. If we were running IBM and we wanted to hedge our bets
and pull all that Linux together, we would make the stock trade (market cap comparison: 150B vs. <1B ...and imagine VMW is at 25B!).
Finally, maybe it is time to take a look back at Linus or more rightly the Linux kernel itself. What is that all about today? It certainly is not about the desktop or users, or even the embedded market that needs solutions that work over time. It is not about PowerPC (especially 32-bit). The infrastructure is the focus there too (think "partner-fallout"). Funny, it almost seems like IBM
owns "Linux" - too bad it was not on the account of PowerPC. The sad part is that some of the folks at Freescale don't see what is happening to their customers and their opportunity. Alas, the Long Tail won't last forever, especially in today's embedded market.
So, let's get serious and still have some fun before it is too late...As mentioned yesterday, privacy control ought to be an end-user function based on finding the right personal balance between responsibility and convenience. In so far as our freedom is concerned, our personal choices should be tantamount (as long as we don't infringe on the freedom and/or rights of others). The market is not moving that way. We need to take some control back. If we want it, we will have to find ways to manage identity, digital rights and secure payments or we will all be pods,
virtually that is.
The Community is the Computer -
a Super Computer.
Go Zig!*
R&B
*
Who is Zig?! Find out: New Year Resolution - More and Better.
