Honey, I Shrunk the Hardware - Company Business and Marketing - Industry Trend or Event - Brief Article

Health Management Technology, August, 2001 by Robin Blair

It's the sociologist in me that is fascinated with technology--not the gadgets and gizmos, but the industry itself. It's hard to find an industry that is better at creating need by filling it and demonstrating applicability first than the technology industry.

Eons ago I worked for a Fortune 100 company. I remember the day my department got its first server. It was about the size of the early, nine-inch screen MacIntosh. Before long, we got one the size of a single-drawer file cabinet. Then I moved to another department where multiple servers were locked and sheltered from public view. Only the IS staff had keys.

Every day we see advances that allow us to do more computing with less hardware, power and support. Every day the capability to better manipulate more data into usable information increases--seemingly threefold. I would be tempted to wonder how far and wide the cycle can continue, except I think the real mantra has emerged--incalculable functionality, but with a leather belt clip, please.

Servers are one example. The file-cabinet size boxes have shrunk and continue to shrink. Wizards in boxes are fine, but it still costs multi-millions to build a data center. The highest priced component of the technology equation remains the staff to support it. Energy bills are expensive, and we all know the work slow-downs that occur when technology belches.

Servers shrunk to pizza box sizes that can be stacked in racks up to the ceiling. But even those require energy, space and support, so the new book-size "blade" servers that come pre-configured for one function and can be set up in minutes promise to improve. With software that links them together for easy replacement, and switches that shuttle network traffic between storage banks and other servers, book-size servers will reduce energy drains and lower staff support requirements. Now I hear software is coming to allow server conglomerates to act in concert to meet the greatest needs of the user organization, as workload demands change throughout the workday. I envision it like the computer-orchestrated water fountains in Las Vegas.

The same has happened to wireless hardware, especially PDAs. While they initially looked like they were headed down the same path as eight-track tapes, PDAs find new buyers everyday because they do exceedingly more with less. Today PDAs work on factory floors, in the agriculture and aviation sectors, and in a variety of human and consumer industries. Full-size PDA keyboards have been joined by pocket-size keyboards, attachments for digital cameras and pocket-size thermal printers.

The well-heralded WR Hambrecht & Co. study suggests that by 2004, 20 percent of physicians will use a PDA. I hope it's even greater. I look forward to the day when my physician treats me accompanied by a PDA instead of a pen and paper file. It's the sociologist, not the patient, in me that anticipates and appreciates an industry doing more and better with less. Bring it on.