This week at Intel, we will host several thousand of the world's foremost software and hardware developers in San Francisco at our triannual Intel Developers Forum. It is an event that requires months of planning, years of product development and countless debates within our company. For many of us, Intel Developers Forum is a culmination of our lives work and committment to technology innovation. Intel has been hosting this event for 11 years and over those 11 years we have remained committed to providing the best venue possible for our colleagues in the industry. Each year we announce new technologies, introduce new products, technology usage models and provide our opinion on the direction of the technology industry. As an Intel employee this event serves as a tremendous source of pride for the hardwork and imagination of our engineers, manufacturing geniuses and executive leadership. It also provides us with a chance to continue to learn from the rest of the industry. I would also like to point out it is an opportunity for our customers, colleagues and developers to let us know when we have missed the mark.
Too much communication and collaboration is NOT always a good thing.
What continues to strike me (humble me as well) is the continued drive of the technology industry to innovate, problem solve and deliver the best products the world has ever seen, regardless of the profit motive. I would hope other industries would embrace a similar model of rewarding innovation and ingenuity....
As the world (and Intel) tranforms our technology infrastructure from static, immobile, expensive and exclusive to mobile, collaborative, inexpensive and inclusive it becomes critical for all of us in the industry to define architectural transitions that take advantage of this paradigm shift. Virtualization can certainly play a key role in enabling more mobile application deployments, more collaborative operating system environments, faster time to production for applications and better use of energy resources. It also has the potential to be a new frontier of collaborative innovation. Utlizing more compute, I/O and storage resources across a broader range of applications in a reduced carbon footprint. Reducing our mutual dependencies on any single source of software, hardware and carbon emitting suppliers. With time, it may even allow us to share compute resources with our suppliers and/or colleagues seamlessly and securely. From mobile phone to mobile internet devices to desktop to servers to mainframes and a host of additional embedded applications (think ATM, Food Dispensers, Checkout stands, Gas Pumps, etc), Virtualization with secure authentication could facilitate an interesting array of application usages for all consumers in the Global economy. It is not a Panacea, to heal all wounds of the industry, but merely a facilitating technology capable of providing a collaborative underpinning for the technological world we have become. What is possible and what is here today are obviously not always aligned in time or execution. Yet, I am always excited when any technology (from anyone and particularly Intel) has the ability to bring us more efficient use of our limited carbon footprint, limited time on the planet and sets the table for a world of autonomic continuity in which servers, desktops or devices don't "die"....they are simply retired.
I can only hope our former Chairman, the illustrious Andy Grove, was mistaken when he coined the term "Only the paranoid survive". I am of the opinion that survival is not enough, it is thriving and innovation which move us forward, breeds new ideas, new usages, new applications and new languages for us all to enjoy.
I welcome your comments, thoughts and ideas....