[EAS] The Cheap Revolution

pjk pjk at design.eng.yale.edu
Thu May 6 20:16:00 EDT 2004


Subject:   The Cheap Revolution

See also
http://jove.eng.yale.edu/pipermail/eas-info/2003/000618.html with
its reference to 
<http://www.economist.com/surveys/showsurvey.cfm?issue=20030510>
   --PJK
------------------------------------------------------------------
(from NewsScan Daily, 6 May 2004)

WORTH THINKING ABOUT: THE CHEAP REVOLUTION
Rich Karlgaard, the publisher of Forbes magazine, writes:
   "Poke around Google and you sense a clean break from the past, a 
harbinger of the future. The company's Web site handles about 750
million  page views a day and has become the third most visited site
in the world.  Google performs its Web search miracle with a
backroom technology plant  consisting of about 100,000 cheap servers
-- basically, mail-order PCs  without monitors -- that cost about
$2,000 apiece. When one of these cheap crunchers goes on the blink,
Google junks it like an old razor blade, and  slips in a
replacement.
   "Pay attention to the money Google does not spend. No fat service
contracts. No bloated in-house 'fix-it' departments. Google's cheap
ways save 90 cents on a typical information-technology dollar,
according to Mike Nevens, a former head of McKinsey's technology
practice. This amazing 90% savings is the key to understanding
Google and much, much more about today's economy. I call it the
Cheap Revolution, and it's in full swing.  All around us, it's
pushing costs down -- not down a slope, but over a cliff."
                                              *** 
See
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB108371228271802120,00.html?mod=opinion%5Fmain%5Fcommentaries
(sub req'd) for Rich Karlgaard's  "The Little Search Engine That
Could," in  the Wall Street Journal 5 May 2004





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