Sun's Schwartz: (free) Google and Yahoo are major signs of things to come
In issue #8 of ZDNet's IT Matters series of podcasts (download the MP3, or learn how to have them automatically downloaded while you're sleeping), Sun president and COO Jonathan Schwartz lays out his vision for utility computing, why Sun's $1-per-CPU-per-hour pricing has no choice but to trend down towards (maybe to 50 cents next year), why services built on utility grids will trend to be free, and why Google, Yahoo and eBay are examples of how we're actually already there. More importantly, Schwartz describes the business model behind Sun's thinking and why, in the long run, the usage of shared grids like the five geographically distributed facilities that Sun is putting into place will make Sun more profitable than it ever could have been as a company selling boxes. Here's a sampling of what he said:
Regarding what's being announced today, Feb 1, 2005:
The broadscale commercial availability of computing for $1 per CPU hourOn what options are open to companies that don't want to outsource to a shared grid:
Grid on a Skid. Specify how many CPUs you want and we