Everyone seems to agree that computer hardware is a commodity, and the conventional wisdom for struggling systems businesses in newly competitive markets is to refocus on software or services. For the last few years, Silicon Graphics (SGI) was one of these companies, with its high-powered graphics workstations falling victim to aggressive competitors benefitting from Moore's Law.
Rather than succumb to conventional wisdom, however, SGI recently launched its Visual Workstation -- a multiprocessor Intel machine with a high-performance, proprietary bus -- to capture the market for cheap, graphics, and multimedia workstations. Its price/performance numbers seem compelling for customers who have decided to go the NT, rather than Macintosh, route.
Contrast SGI with Be, a company that has been chasing this same market. Be gave up its hardware business several years ago to focus exclusively on its operating system, and the result of its toils is BeOS Release 4 -- an impressive, high-performance operating system that runs on Intel and Power PC machines. In general, BeOS on an Intel machine with a standard AGP or PCI bus won't outperform NT running on an SGI Visual Workstation, but there shouldn't be any reason why you couldn't run BeOS on a Visual Workstation. Additionally, while the cheapest Visual Workstation costs $3395.00, BeOS costs $99.95.
Conventional wisdom says that Be was the smarter of the two companies and has the better chance of capturing this low-end market. But conventional wisdom, in this case, is wrong. Other than the lower costs, building a new operating system is not much different from building a new, proprietary workstation -- the very business that SGI is abandoning. The unfortunate side effect is that, although BeOS is a fine piece of software and has been widely available to developers for at least three years, there are still comparatively few applications that run on the operating system.
It's too soon to pick winners or losers, but it sure looks like SGI has chosen the smarter path. So much for oversimplified, conventional wisdom.
--Eugene Eric Kim
The Council of the American Law Institute (ALI) has decided to hold off presenting Uniform Commercial Code (UCC), Article 2B, "Software Contracts and Licenses of Information," at the annual meeting of the American Law Institute for final consideration in May 1999. This effectively defers any further action until at least October 1999. Article 2B is a proposed addition to the UCC intended to cover all transactions involving the sale and lease of software, databases, and information. According to National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws president Gene N. Lebrun, "The Council appeared to need more time to consider the beneficial progress on the draft made at the last Drafting Committee meeting in November [1998], and wanted to have some opportunity to review text and comments more fully than was possible in December [1998]." For more information on Article 2B, see the "Editorial," DDJ, January 1999.
--Jonathan Erickson
It had to happen sooner or later. Starbucks coffee conglomerate is jumping to the java jive by mixing coffee and computers. The company has opened "Circadia," a San Francisco-based subsidiary that provides Internet access and coffee. The hardware consists of high-speed Ethernet connections and tabletop telephones with data ports. A web kiosk is also available. Access is initially free, but will probably cost big (Star)bucks before long.
--Jonathan Erickson
Spurred on by the success of Australian Geoffrey Bennett, Linux and other nonWindows computer users are demanding -- and getting in some cases -- their money back. Bennett, who had just bought a new Toshiba laptop, carefully read the "End User License Agreement for Microsoft Software," which stated that users who did not accept the terms of the agreement could return the software to the manufacturer for refunds. Bennett ultimately received a $110.00 refund from Toshiba. (See http://www .netcraft.com .au/geoffrey/toshiba.html for the whole story.) eMachines is another manufacturer apparently honoring the licensing agreement as well. For more information, see the Microsoft Refund Newsletter at http:// zork.net/refund.
--Jonathan Erickson
Researchers at Northwestern University have received a patent for what they claim is the world's smallest laser -- a Microcavity Semiconductor Laser (Patent 5,825,799) -- and the laser's Photonic-Well Microcavity Light Emitting Device (Patent 5,790,583). The laser will likely be used to "write" microscopic electronic circuits by inscribing lines that are a few molecules thick onto gold. In such applications, the "ink" is typically chemicals (known as "alkanethiols") and the "paper" is the gold. The technology, which is referred to as "dip-pen nanolithography" can also be used in other forms of microfabrication, nanotechnology, and molecular electronics.
--Jonathan Erickson
The EDN Embedded Microprocessor Benchmark Consortium (EEMBC) has released its first set of benchmarks for embedded processors. Addressing the tricky and controversial problem of accurate and meaningful benchmarks for embedded systems, EEMBC has formed several subcommittees targeting particular markets, such as the automotive and telecommunications industries. Each subcommittee has developed a number of benchmarks based on "real-world" algorithms for its particular market.
Unfortunately, with benchmarks, one size does not fit all. A piece of reference code is usually not an adequate measure of how well suited a particular chip is for your application, because the code is not optimized for that chip. Introducing these customizations, however, can defeat the purpose of benchmarks, because there is no longer a basis for comparison. To address this difficulty, EEMBC has set up a Certification Lab to certify benchmark scores from licensees who have modified the reference code.
EEMBC currently consists of 24 member companies, including AMD, ARM, Motorola, National Semiconductor, and Intel. For more information about EEMBC and its benchmarks, see http://www.eembc.org/.
--Eugene Eric Kim
DDJ