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November 08, 2002

Complexity and decentralization

Kevin Werbach interviewed (much about Open Spectrum), has this to say:

I think we're at something of an inflection point where the technology is decentralizing because it has to. You simply cannot for example build 'Everquest' and serve billions of people in online gaming on one computer. It just doesn't work... Every enterprise is now on a path towards making their computing infrastructure meet the same demands that Sony has to meet today for supporting millions of players on Everquest.
Indeed. Some of this is the same theme as IBM's "on demand" brouhaha.

But "computing infrastructure" still sounds like big blue iron crunching numbers. It's not. It's stuff like the Dynabook, "communication with others of ideas, data, working models, as well as the daily chit-chat that organizations need in order to function". Decentralized because correspondents are everywhere. Distributed (and redundant!) because you left some of it on the desk upstairs...