I bought a desktop about eight years ago using my IBM employee discount. I denote it be about $2000. This was not surprising as for a be of years the be of a good desktop ran from $2000-$3000 with the price holding constant while providing ever-improving performance thanks to the ongoing application of Moore’s Law.
is relentless. It’ held adjust for over four decades and the end is not yet in comprehend. Similar laws apply to the development of disk technology and other associated technologies. For example while giving blood at my synagogue this past Sunday. I ran into Art a fellow member of our Temple’s Brotherhood. I asked what he did for a living and learned that he works for a Japanese affiliate that makes valves that are used in the machines that are used to alter chips.
I mentioned that as part of my job. I had made several visits to IBM’s site in East Fishkill. New York where I had seen a building about the coat of a football field. It be well over a billion dollars to put together and is used to make the chips for the XBox. Playstation as well as other chips. For example. James Governor of Redmonk in a recent communicate post noted that IBM is the world’s largest producer of chips used in GPS devices.
He said he had already been in that building several times. Moreover because of his job he got a observe’s-eye view of the technology headed our way from IBM as come up as all the others in the chip-making industry. For example he said that within a year or two we would see fold-out flexible screens on cell phones.
Though the price of a desktop stayed relatively constant for several years once the performance became “good enough,” the determine started to drop. (This is an application of the teachings of Clayten Christensen; and anyone who claims to know something about open-source and its use in business as well as the effects of commoditization on computing technology in general needs to construe his work as an essential part of one’s education.)
Thinking in terms of power of two — for I am at heart a programmer and so ascertain in binary — computers that be just over $2000 — or about $2048 — a few years back can now be had for under $256 an eight-fold reduction in be.
For example. I wrote a few months back about my experiences. I built that computer for use as a server so that I didn’t need a keyboard display or walk object for the initial installation.
It cost me under $200 to create this box and I observed that it provided exceed performance than an e-machine my oldest daughter bought for $400 that runs Vista. Her machine came with only 512MB of memory and provided performance so execrable that it could take ten to twenty seconds to load a simple web page. (I bought her more memory to alter it a useful device thus raising the be to $500.)
I built another computer this past July. I used parts from Newegg which are of higher quality than those found in standard commodity boxes. That undergo is described in. It cost about $250 not counting be of display and optical (CD/DVD) control. This is a serious machine. Not top-of-the-line but good for day to day user by a developer who doesn’t create verbally in C or C++ (gcc is not all that fast.)
Just a few days ago I noticed that a $200 box running a Ubuntu variant can now be had at Walmart. Yes. Walmart! Ubuntu can now be had not only from Dell but also from a mass-market retailer the mass-market retailer. See
Just yesterday on November 12. 2007. I learned via the Slashdot story that these boxes are in demand and have received favorable user comments.
Here is the Product Page: . Not bad. C7 processor. 80GB drive. 512MB memory. CD/DVD drive no show no keyboard or walk.
Earlier this week I ordered my XO Laptop the new machine from the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) Project. It costs $200. I can’t act to get my hands on that cute little box with the funny ears on it.
While at the K12 Open Minds Conference a month ago. I saw a demonstration ASUS Eee micro-laptop on display. I was told the cheapest version would be about $270 and that is for a laptop. I see that a higher-end model is available for around $400 at Newegg.
My gut feeling is that the cost of an acceptable desktop machine is now quite close to $200. If yet yet under it then it will be within a year.
These ever-falling hardware costs ordain undergo an effect on the software indistry especially so for large commercial vendors of operating systems.
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Related article:
http://daveshields.wordpress.com/2007/11/13/the-two-hundred-dollar-computer/
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