There seems to be a serious amount of consolidation that appears to be happening over the internet. Initially, there was the client – server architecture that had the world blown with its advanced technology at the back end and “dummy” terminals at the front end. But then, gradually, as people became pressed for time, more and more applications started moving to the desktop, and there were more powerful and faster computers, and the transfer rates within the computer did not keep up with the rates of the network. That means, the network rates were much slower, and it reduced over distance. So the cost of transferring data over longer distances seemed to be increasing. However, the size of data also seems to be on the rise. So, what does one do?
Move everything online. That is on the server, yet running off the client. Perfect example Ajax. Heavy application running off the server and page gets dynamically updated without referring back to the server on the desktop unit itself. Now how’s that for technology.
I feel that IT is going through the same process that the manufacturing companies took. First the bigger is better, then bigger is not better, then better is bigger, and then better is better.
Big companies came in, the dot com boom, the dot com bust, the dot com rise. in processing, things are getting smaller, like manufacturing, batch sizes are decreasing, for optimization on the production line. more and more items are getting intergrated.
the VoIP wars seem to be heating up. VoIP of voice over IP, heralded in a new form of long distance communcation. with the internet speeds icnreasing very fast, packet sizes are becming smaller, and more packed. MPLS, now moves away from ATM and Frame Relay networks, offering high avaiability networks that can run voice and data and have QoS installed on it, now HOW cool is THAT! Skype’s tryst with the internet seems to be taking beatings in all quaters. Voice quaility is good on skype, and the only downside was the free skype to skype calls. that means, unless skyps esits, its paid calls for a skype out connection. The gizmo project came out with something “better” you could call your contacts off-net numbers for free. but that is so cunning that it does not seem to work for me, even though I have fulfilled all the pre-requsit requirements. Very deceptive! well, the Behemoth of the internet google is slowly making inroads. I fear that soon, they will rule the internet, an if they decide to start charing for their service, god help the others!!! 🙂
anyways, skype’s “unique” peer-to-peer protocol, which suspect was improved on from Kazaa days is not the usual SIP/SIMPLE protocol that is deployed by gizmo. It has its own propritary protocol that it is riding on. Now with google getting into the instant communcation space using jabber, i seriously think things are going to get heated up. the enterprise space seems to be dominated currently with microsofts, ibms and other large players. OpenSource seems to have taken a backseat, mainly due to support issues. Now, that I am sure will be something that is slowly growing out. The Ubuntu forum seems to be the a brillinat place to be able to get information, with the pool of knowledge of users giving rookies a fair taste of seemless intergration. Google’s promotion of Jabber, a protocol used for presence and IM. i first used it on apple talk. found it so cool. if you log into you gmail, the same thing pops up and shows you if your contact is online or not. imagine now moving this to a mobile unit. if I look at my mobile phone, I can see if my friends are online, and send then an sms/ instant message.
I think the entire shift is towards mobility, information and speed. Wimax has been deployed, now with a wimax enabled phone, you can log into your phone, surf, and make calls, voip as well as via the cellular network.
wimax will have the ability to stream video and audio with bandwidths of Mbps as opposed to slower than 33.6 Kbps on a gprs.
the future is wide open!