Week 9: Moore's Law (Clear)

Moore's Law was the topic of this week's class. It was named after Gordon Moore, a co-founder of Intel. Here's the historical background of how the technological landscape has changed over the years:

• 1500: ideas for mechanical computing started with Leonardo Davinci
• 1896: the Tabulating Machine Company was formed for mechanical methods to count the U.S. population for the Census. Later the company became IBM (International Business Machines)
• 1904: John Ambrose Fleming developed the first commercial diode vacuum tube, but Edison discovered this earlier and deemed it worthless. This allowed the electrical switch to turn on and off a thousand times faster than any contraption to date
• 1926: first semi-conductor transitor invented
• 1944: Harvard and IBM developed the Mark 1 (main frame computer). It weighed about 10,000 pounds and took up 51 feet in length, 8 feet in height and 2 feet in depth. 
• 1958: Texas Instruments built the first integrated circuit. This led to the modern processor and led to smaller computers to be produced.
• Early 1960s: 2,000 computers in use in the U.S.
• 1965: first microcomputer developed. It cost $18,000 (the PDP8 was the model) and there were 50,000 sold
• 1975: Altare 8800 sold at $397 without a keyboard, mouse, monitor or interface. It included the Intel microprocessor and 256 bytes of memory
• Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak hacked this to create a computer with a display, built-in keyboard and disk storage: this was the apple

Moore's Law is chip performance per dollar doubles every 18 months. The next generation of chips should be twice as fast and cost the same thing as 18 months ago.

It's important to understand price elasticity which is the rate at which demand fluctuates with price change. High price elasticity means when the price drops, there will be a spike in demand.

The five waves of computing are how computers have evolved over the years. The five waves of computing are:

• 1960s: main frame (Mark 1 for batch computing with punch cards)
• 1970s: mini-computers (smaller than room-sized Mark 1, had a series of switches)
• 1980s: personal computers (Macintosh introduced in 1982. Uses a mouse and graphical interface)
• 1990s: mobile computers (laptops, personal computing devices)
• 2000s: ubiquitous computers (now an integral part of your life)
• referred to as the Internet of Things
• Cisco estimates that by 2020, there will be 50 billion things connected to the Internet. Intel claims there will be 31 billion things by 2020.

As a manager, you need to consider some questions:

• How long will your computing equipment remain useful?
• What does this mean for capital expense budget?
• What does it mean for your costs associated with maintenance?
• What does it mean for training budget?

Also, keep in mind the Death of Moore's Law. There are three inter-related forces: size, heat and power that threaten to slow down Moore's Law. This means there is only so much smaller in size, less heated and less use of power that can be accomplished.

Here is a website that gives a better understanding of Moore's Law: http://arstechnica.com/hardware/news/2008/09/moore.ars

The site showed me how effective Moore's Law has been over the year and the origins of it. It goes more in depth on explanation and really explains any questions you have.

Business is important because we have to know what is coming and what more to expect in the future. In the questions to consider, it's important to think of these before making purchasing decisions to get the most out of your investment.

Until next time...