Economist, Apr 18, 2015 (I)--Moore's Law

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(1) Information technology | The Cheap, Convenient Cloud; As cloud-computing prices keep falling, the whole IT business will change.
www.economist.com/news/business/ ... ge-cheap-convenient  

Quote:

Launched in 2006 "AWS’s revenues are thought to have reached $5 billion in 2014 and to be growing at more than 50% annually. Analysts have already assigned AWS a valuation of $44 billion * * * AWS is much larger than the cloud business of rivals such as Microsoft and Google

"As cloud providers rush to build new data centres, and battle for market share, businesses are finding that the cost of putting their computing and data storage into the online cloud is getting ever cheaper.

"The IT industry is going through a wrenching change, in a sense reversing the trend of the 1990s in which corporate computing shifted from giant, centralised mainframes to smaller, dispersed desktops and servers. Like most advances in IT, the advent of cheap online processing and storage has been brought about by Moore’s Law * * * which celebrates its 50th anniversary on April 19th. And fortunately, Moore’s Law seems to have some life left in it yet (see article) [This article is the same as (2) below].

"But for providers of cloud services, and their shareholders, the question is: will we ever make any money from this? So far, all that many of them have done is run up losses. * * * Just as airlines’ and carmakers’ losses are tourists’ and motorists’ gains, businesses and other organisations that make heavy use of IT services will enjoy big savings.

Note: Gordon E MOORE, Cramming More Components onto Integrated Circuits. Electronics, 38: 114-117 (Apr 19, 1965).
www.monolithic3d.com/uploads/6/0 ... re_1965_article.pdf


(2) Moore’s law turns 50 | Ever More from Moore; A microchip pioneer’s prediction has a bit more life left in it.
www.economist.com/news/business/ ... -it-ever-more-moore

Quote:

"If Moore’s law has started to flag, it is mainly because of economics. As originally stated by Mr Moore, it was not just about reducing the size of transistors, but also lowering their price. [It is, however, getting more and more expensive to shrink chip width further, starting 28nm.]

"one of the corollaries of Moore’s law is that the energy efficiency of transistors follows the same exponential law, doubling around every two years. And like the law itself, it’s not quite dead yet.