A trip through Computer Faire this year left me underwhelmed but positive about the new-found maturity in the IT industry. Some would say the absence of hype and of the former wealth of innovation is bad news, but others, specifically customers, will embrace less talk and more action.
There were instances of important, funky, valuable and amazing technology, but the usual suspects were also there.
Carel Alberts, technology editor, ITWeb
There were instances of important, funky, valuable and amazing technology, but the usual suspects were also there.
Sameness pervaded some vendors` offerings, with innovation strictly under the hood and sometimes microscopic, imitations abounded and there was an obscure corner featuring products and tech that had more to do with IT-enabled or -augmented industries than with IT itself. Without mentioning them by name, imagine by way of example a BMW stand, with this manufacturer claiming the fact that it has so much computing under the dash that this makes it an IT vendor.
Hot prospects
Without further ado then, some of the good ones, without claiming I spotted them all:
On recommendation I visited the www.cartridge.co.za stand. The company allows ordering of inkjet and laser cartridges over the Web, claiming prices are up to 40% lower than retail.
Wi-Tel, a wireless hotspot provider, has done an interconnectivity deal (between hotspots around the world) with Wireless G. Get a laptop with Wifi enabled, a wireless network card and buy a Wireless G account, and go anywhere. But first go to www.wirelessg.co.za.
An agency for MTN, iTalk, has a SIM-enabled phone card for laptops, which does a blazing GPRS dial-in and connection. The MTN-sponsored press room at Computer Faire featured the same technology, which was entirely serviceable, if you`re stuck somewhere in the sticks or on foreign soil. The card comes with the MTN Procall 120 contract. Go to www.italk.co.za.
I was quite charmed to hear you can create five virtual workstations from one PC with BeTwinSoftware from Fujitsu Siemens. Go to www.nova-south.com or e-mail sales@nova-south.com.
And if you want Web services without having to buy an application server, try Intersystems` Cache 5 (www.intersystems.com).
The cutest item of the faire for me was the Taurus network server appliance from www.agilitech.co.za. It can`t be more than a brick or two high, installs in 15 minutes, and features Internet gateway/router, Web cache, e-mail server, file and print sharing, Web server, firewalls, VPN, AV engine, NAT, DHCP and DNS, WAN connectivity, optional wireless and optimised Linux kernel.
There are the geographic information management systems from GIMS, which does optimal routing for fleets in heavy traffic. Go to www.gims.com.
Making a splash
One of the biggest attractions at Computer Faire this year was AMD`s new Opteron processor. It offers x86-64-bit instruction set processing with backward 32-bit compatibility.
With technology like hyper-transport, removing I/O bottlenecks, the chip can transfer data back and forth in the host system at up to 6.4GBps. It has support for up to three such links, amounting to 19.2GBps.
An integrated DDR DRAM memory controller on the chip is AMD`s answer to the restriction on low-latency memory bandwidth to the processor core. The controller runs at the processor`s core frequency, and in the Opteron environment, each additional processor has its own controller, thereby scaling overall memory bandwidth.
Using silicon on only half the chip reduces the cost, and the use of copper instead of another conductive metal makes the power usage and heat production lower. This is very good news for laptop users, as power usage is optimised. Copper can accommodate more transistors on one chip and be set closer together, the accomplishment of which means smaller chips handling just as many instructions per second.
If AMD`s CPUs live up to its claims, this is good news for gamers and graphics workers, and provides new opportunities for advanced code that can now run on 64-bit technology.
The IT budget is another distinct advantage. This technology runs on all major platforms and with backward compatibility and 64-bit advanced technology, it allows running 32-bit and 64-bit applications on one platform on one machine at the same time.
With regards to benchmarks, AMD states its range of CPUs have always matched that of its competitor and "quite often over-ranked" them. Branding of processors is related to performance, and not frequency. For performance, the company uses the formula that states " processor power = work done per clock cycle x clock speed".
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