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Integration is the killer app: putting the future in perspective. (Enterprise Solutions).

Article Excerpt
In 1975 Niklaus Wirth, the Swiss computer scientist who created the Pascal programming language, published a seminal book entitled Algorithms + Data Structures = Programs. If Wirth had written about business applications, Computing + Storage = Applications would have been a better title. Of course, in 1975 there weren't that many business applications. Most of them ran limited back-office functions on mainframes. PCs weren't on the map. The killer app for PCs--the first spreadsheet--wouldn't be created until 1981.

More than a quarter of a century later, things have changed. Most notably, applications are connected. TCP/IP and Ethernet provide a base set of networking standards. Distributed computing standards, XML and Web services being the latest ones, enable cross-application communication. A modern rendition of Wirth's statement could be Computing + Storage + Connectivity + Open Standards = Applications. In a world of connected applications, integration is the killer app. It is the key to growing the business value of applications. To really understand the significance of this claim, it helps to put the future in perspective by looking at the broader trends in computing, storage, connectivity, and open standards.

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Moore's Law--named after Gordon Moore, cofounder of Intel--has defined computing trends since 1965. Since its last revision in 1975, it states that the number of transistors per square inch on integrated circuits doubles every 18 months. Moore's Law is expected to hold for at least a decade longer. Processors, memory, and other circuitry will get both faster and smaller. Computers will crunch through more data. Mobile devices will have significant independent computing capabilities, enough to run basic office applications. Embedded microprocessors, already present in everything from smart cards to household appliances, will start appearing in ever more places. And, just as Moore's Law is starting to give way, quantum computing may be within reach.

Storage also exhibits powerful trends. Storage density has increased by nearly 50% per year. Total storage capacity has been increasing much faster--more than doubling every year. Costs are falling rapidly. Disk storage is at about the cost of tape storage--around $1/Gb. You can buy a terabyte drive for less than $1,000. At that rate, it will soon be possible to keep all data online all the time. Portable devices are also increasing their storage capabilities dramatically. CompactFlash cards of 1Gb are readily available. In the same form factor, Hitachi Microdrives provide several gigabytes of storage. For smart phones there are MultiMediaCards. With comparable capacities, they are smaller, more secure, and more efficient. In the future, we have new types of optical memory, for example, holographic, to look forward to.

Connectivity hasn't exhibited the predictable trends of computing and storage. Instead, it has exploded. The Internet boom was marked by massive investment in capacity. Dark fiber is still waiting to be used while telcos are going bankrupt to restructure their expansion debt. Most businesses and many households have broadband connectivity. Broadband capabilities are increasing. New technologies allow...

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