Innovation

The Future of Data Centers

Posted by on Dec 9, 2011 in Industry Trends, Innovation, Leadership | 0 comments

Everything Evolves I still remember playing with my Commodore VIC 20 and thinking that 3K of memory was plenty.  But of course, within a couple months, 3K of memory wasn’t enough and I was already entertaining the idea of getting a Commodore 64.  While both the VIC 20 and the Commodore 64 hooked to your TV set, the Commodore 64 had color – and it had 64K of usable memory, more memory than I could use in a lifetime – or so I thought.  Nowadays, my watch has more computing power. Data centers have evolved too.  To begin with, computers were housed in “computer rooms.”  These computers were so large that an entire room was dedicated to one computer. As computers evolved, “computer rooms” became “data processing rooms.”  Then entire floors were devoted to data processing.  Gradually, entire facilities became “data centers.”  Now we build server farms as this Facebook data center picture shows. Predictable Patterns...

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Beat Google!

Posted by on Nov 11, 2011 in Innovation | 0 comments

When I worked for a large data center co-location provider, I was privy to the headquarters of several large internet companies.  During this time, these companies were in fierce competition for the Internet search market.  When I visited Yahoo, there were signs up that said “Beat Google!”  I was at Microsoft and there were signs saying “Beat Google!”  A few months later, I started work at Google and I saw a sign on one of the cubicles that said “Beat Google!” Google was one of the most innovative companies I had ever worked for.  And being involved in that environment made me realize that truly innovative companies never keep their focus on “the competition.”  Instead, they focus on how they can advance their passions.  Apple, under Steve Jobs, focused on his passion for elegance and simplicity – and that focus literally turned Apple into a company that helped define our culture.  Google focuses on doing “cool” things and in the process changed the way we find things on the Internet and how we navigate this world.  Jeff Bezos followed his passion for business – writing up the business plan for Amazon while driving from New York to Seattle – and revolutionized retail.  I’m pretty sure that any business Jeff wanted to pursue would have been wildly successful. ...

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