Enterprise Technology By Phil Edholm

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Technology Longevity

By Phil September 29, 2008 11:37 am

I find the longevity of technology to be an interesting topic.  While there are some technologies and implementations that seem to have longevity, it appears that increasingly, new technologies have significantly reduced longevity.  This seems to dramatically increase the cost of ownership over time.

In communications, the continued bandwidth revolution and the demand created by Moore's Law and the changes in the human I/O have continued to make regular technology obsolescence a tradition.  We can argue that we are reaching a peak in bandwidth demands 9see some of my previous posts on this topic), but until you get to that point, the replacements will continue.  And for both Nomadic and Wireless the trend appears to continue much longer.

The otehr factor that seems to be reducing longevity is complexity.  About 2 years ago I moved from a tube based television to a rear projection television based on a new technology.  I was awed by the 1080i HD pictures, and the overall feel of the relatively large picture.  After about 18 months the lamp in the TV went out, probably caused to some degree as the TV was in a cabinet (I have since installed n exhaust fan in the cabinet to control heat build-up.  Then, at about 20 months, the TV began to develop a distinct green cast to the picture.  After diagnosis by the repair group, the Color Module (light source, chips, etc.) had to be replaced.  While the parts were replaced under warranty, I had to foot the labor bill.  So essentially within 2 years about 50-70% of the initial cost was incurred in repairs.   While the new TV was in the shop we returned the now 12 year old tube TV that had previously been there and it works great.  In fact, I have never had a tube TV fail.  I wonder if this is due to the maturity of the technology or the simplicity of the design?

Is complexity growing faster than our ability to effectively manage the reliability and longevity of the resultant implementations?  We have seen the power utilization analysis that Nortel has done showing lower power use in data gear versus competitors.  Is some of this due to good design decision that reduce complexity?

Complexity is the bane of reliability, but I am beginning to think it is the bane of longevity and TCO as well....thoughts?

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Comments

  1. Dear Mr.Edholm, I am trying to solve an active problem where I must deploy the Nortel Callpilot Lotus Notes 8.02 client for over 10,000 users in our organization and am not able to get our Nortel representatives to find a solution in time for our deployment of October 15th I have exhausted all avenues so far and am now searching the web for support. I hope this reaches you or you are able to pass this on to someone of executive level authority who may be able to help us meet our dead line. Sincerely Emal

    September 29th, 2008 at 2:45 pm by Emal Osman

  2. Complexity? Take the IP telephony hype for example while forgetting what a typical user wants from his phone… IP telephony was to revoltionize the industry, allow application to move the phone, etc.

    Even if I’m a computer engineer, I still want to pick up the phone and have a dial tone. That’s about it.

    IP telephony technologies ar more about the entreprise or carrier to lower or optimize their TCO, than offring new service to a user (apart from Skype or so, but still.)

    Maybe we have to step back a little and ask: What does the user wants? … and not be driven by the technology…

    September 29th, 2008 at 3:28 pm by PotentialPartner

  3. Phil,

    You are right about complexity being a problem, but IMO it is not “the” problem. I think most of the problem is attitude, ignorance, short term thinking and cost shifting tactics .

    I have seen product managers refuse obvious and elementary changes in their product because they a “legacy”. This is to foster interest in the “new sliced bread” and shifts the cost of development to the new stuff.

    I am guessing that the gross margins are better/easier on the “new” rather than updating and maintaining the “old”.

    Designing for sustainability and reuse has become a thing of the past in both hardware and software. It is a lost art. Designers now seem to be encouraged in university and industry to build “good enough” and the message is that it’s all disposable.

    It’s the way the market is structured and promoted and the resulting attitudes of the customer that drive this, it’s been a disturbing trend in a lot of areas for a long time.

    October 1st, 2008 at 10:55 am by many

  4. Great comments…

    Osman, please submit a comment with your email, I will get it to the right folks.

    PotentialPartner - I couldn’t agree more, the value of VoIP is almost completely cost and in many cases it falls short. The low hanging fruit were the teleworker and road warrior. The office makes the most sense from a device perspective as a greenfield. The value of centralized call processing using existing devices is significant though.
    The real value is the integration with applications, information and transforming business process (see the recent posts on this topic). You are right, I do not care if my phone is IP or not (though I have used IP phones almost exclusively for 2 years).

    Many - you raised a critical issue…is good enough good enough? The problem is that a disposable device that costs $2,000 for a consumer or $2M for an enterprise is a real problem. These devices are the underpinnings of the system and the TCO for them is increasing far faster than the value delivered, resulting in an unbalance…..

    October 7th, 2008 at 7:23 pm by Phil

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