News Item Dated: 28 October 2002
From: ZDNet  (10/24/02); Werbach, Kevin

It is no surprise that today's most successful technologies are decentralized in nature, because decentralized systems are much better suited to take on the tasks required in an increasingly complex and demanding IT environment, writes technology analyst Kevin Werbach. The Internet itself, for example, is not hindered by its own growth because its infrastructure and content are widely distributed, unlike centralized systems that crash when burdened with too much content or too many users. Moreover, decentralized systems free individuals from many of the artificial constraints imposed on them, such as departmental, national, and industrial boundaries. Werbach says Wi-Fi is a good example of a decentralized system that is being rapidly adopted because it is easy to deploy, inexpensive, and innovative.

Several technology companies are moving in the direction of decentralized computing, and the entertainment industry should take heed as well. Just as IBM has had to unfetter itself from dependence on building mainframe computers, the entertainment industry needs to change its business model from being the sole source of content. More decentralization, however, does not equate with better systems, since equilibrium needs to be found in each application. Ray Ozzie, the creator of Lotus Notes and his own Groove collaboration software, says his peer-to-peer system is best applied to groups of sizes between two and 25 people, since social dynamics limit benefits in wider deployments. Similarly, by supporting the semi-decentralized .Net on the Windows platform, Microsoft keeps its proprietary desktop operating system relevant.

Interested? For further reading, check out this link: http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1107-963167.html