Monday, September 30, 2002

R & D cuts in Silicon Valley The Financial Times' report on the state of R & D in Silicon Valley was published today (09/30/02). It painted a dismal picture for the Valley. A notable exception in the industry is Microsoft, who stated it would raise its annual R&D budget by 20 per cent, to $5.2bn.  Rick Rashid, head of Microsoft R & D, says he is confident that the rate of technological innovation is not set to slow. "I am really excited about data mining, web services and the increases in storage capacity. Over the next two years you will be able to have a terabyte [1,000 gigabytes] of data on your personal computer. You won't have to throw anything out. You could store every conversation you ever have in your life, from birth to death. That opens up astonishing opportunities. You can create digital memories." ______________________________________________ Szyperski's Dot Net Components I had received a draft copy of Clemens Szyperski's paper, '.Net as a Component Framework'. There are copies of the paper floating around - I forwarded one to Mark Smith of Virtual Methods. Mark's firm develops Software Engineering tools on the Groove platform. Clemens Szyperski is a fairly regular columnist in the Software Development magazine. He is the author of a very much appreciated and successful book (got the Jolt Award) on the topic of Component Software - a second edition is due in mid-November. Insightful reading for the .Neter. 8:54:10 PM