On Tuesday, Christopher Dawson and I squared off in our Great Debate series to argue the question of hardware innovation. With the focus at CES shifting from interesting developments on hardware to the latest in cool software applications and the cloud, did hardware really matter anymore? I took the stand that hardware innovation was not only alive and well, but also critical to the development of the next generations of software. And by a 4 to 1 margin, you agreed.
That’s not to say that Chris didn’t make some very valid points; as we move to cloud-based services, the core performance of our cloud access device becomes much less of a factor in the user experience. But we are nowhere near that point yet, as Internet access speeds, bandwidth caps, and concerns about security and reliability are still issues that have yet to be fully addressed. And the user experience is largely defined by the software interface to the hardware, making software much more obvious to the user.
But hardware is the technology that enables all of the software excitement that users see, be it on a personal device or from a cloud service, and it is the continuing development of hardware technologies that grant software developers the opportunity to let their imagination run wild. I’m sure that looking back at our debate in just a few years will have us shaking our heads and wondering how we even considered that hardware innovation was no longer a major issue.
Chris and I did agree on a few points, though not 100%. We both feel that hardware innovation is alive and well in the datacenter, though he feels that there are still too many waste cycles due to the lack of software that can fully utilize even the current generations of multi-core, multi-threaded CPUs. And we both strongly believe that the continued growth of mobile technologies and, to a certain extent, cloud utilization, by those mobile devices, is heavily dependent on hardware advances in the area of battery technology.
So take a look at the “Great Debate - Hardware: Does it really matter anymore?” and weigh in with your opinions.
