The Unbalanced World
World is unbalanced at many places. We see droughts and floods. Its same for the electronic industry as well. We see products around embedded with components which are far more powerful than what current consumers can make use of. We see 4GB of RAM in PCs now a days, and not one time you will notice system consuming more than 2GB. Yes there are application which can make use of this extra horse power, but how many of we actually use them?
What is the size of HDD installed in your PC? Are you running short of more space lately? No, probably. What about those dual and quad-core processors? That would roughly give you more than 4GHz and are you using these for running internet browsers and songs?
We call these configurations Hummers for City transportation. We all live in cities and not in rendering farm houses. And how is the software industry responding to this cult? By giving us more resource hopping applications. Even OSes would tell you “Your current configuration is not our OS capable”. But there is a change in this trend.
Netbooks, UMPCs and MIDs are on rise not because we are in recession (or were in?). But, people are realizing, they need bikes and scooters. They are choosing mobility and maneuverability over real life animation rendering capabilities and complex OSes. And yes, they are cheaper.
But these new trends are presenting us with very different questions. Since resources now have to be optimised, what is the perfect configuration? How much storage should I have? How many simultaneously running applications would make me happy? What is the perfect screen size for me? Do I need a keyboard sticking on to the screen? How much RAM, since I’m not using bloatwares? What if I get stuck somewhere because of the different resources I have at my disposal, can cloud computing be a solution for me then?
If you look closely, you can draw a similarity between Oil and computer industry. First, if you make lot of oil available, you get lot of cars in the market. Lot of oil gives these car manufacturers freedom to make more powerful cars and hence consuming more fuel. And what would more demand would do the the oil prices?
Same is with the application writers. If you get freedom to use more resources, you would concentrate on how to use it, and not on how to use less of it to do the same work. In the end you get application which demand more, and we give them a systems which in the end are just, More.
And solution as we ponder upon is, Simple. 🙂
notionink 
thought provoking article rohan 😉
the general thought process doesnt allow people to think what’s required and what’s not, instead they go with the choice most people/peers around them are buying. one buys a merc or chevy due to the social strature that builds around our socities, not because he/she really needs that level of comfort.
Watchout for China and japan where most engineers/higher classes’ people still use bicycles to commute to their work 🙂
I loved the oil-computer industry analogy part.. so true! And isn’t it strange that both are set to undergo a major change at the same time?!
I just love the brilliance with which you write articles on your blog!
‘Wah’! What a comparison between the oil industry and the computer industry!
I totally agree.
So does the oil drive car production, or does car production drive oil production, or do they go hand in hand? So is the hardware the car, and the oil the software in you analogy? I ask this question because I often wonder if software developers push hardware developers to make faster and better products, or does the hardware push the software develops to make more use of the hardware, or do you think it’s just a constant push pull relationship between the 2.
Last!! 🙂