IP: By Cringely -- Soon, It's Gonna Rain / A New Modulation Technology Promises to Turn Your Cable TV Connection Into a 10 Gigabit-Per-Second Digital Fire Hose

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> From: Monty Solomon <monty () roscom com>
>
>
> Soon, It's Gonna Rain
> A New Modulation Technology Promises to Turn Your Cable TV Connection
> Into a 10 Gigabit-Per-Second Digital Fire Hose
>
> By Robert X. Cringely
>
> One of the great problems with technical progress is that it often
> requires throwing away much of a previous investment. I have boxes
> filled with old modems, ISDN routers, and Ethernet hubs that are all
> perfectly functional, but useless to me. I have closets filled with
> old computers that run like a charm, but do so at 16 MHz. Still, I
> gladly replaced this equipment each time I could increase performance
> or decrease cost. And it is this willingness to throw away what's
> perfectly good in favor of something perfectly better that is the very
> basis of high-tech industry. It is exactly what makes Microsoft and
> Intel so powerful, yet both companies have to know they could be
> replaced in a moment if the right competitor comes to market with the
> right product. What makes a product right enough to create such
> disruption? My rule says a 10X increase in price-performance will do
> the trick. If a new application, operating system, computer, or piece
> of networking equipment comes along that has 10 times the performance
> at the same price or the same performance at one tenth the cost, it
> doesn't matter who makes it, that product will take the market. Brand
> loyalty is nothing against the power of 10X.
>
> ...
>
> http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20020131.html

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