Moore’s Law and Measuring the Falling Price of Information

In 1994 I bought a computer which cost me $2,700.00. I was so proud because the sales person told me it could process 10 million instructions per second (10MIPS). However, the Sony Play Station at that time could process 100MIPS for only $299.00. This is what Negroponte meant when he said he kept up with thecnological inovations by watching the entertainment side of the industry.
1MIPS is at the core for measuring the impact of the falling price of information. Just like Guttenberg’s printing press was the criterion for the falling price of information in the middle of the 15th Century or the telegraph in the middle 19th Century. How far has the price of information fallen? If we use the cost of 1MIPS as the yard stick, in the 1960's 1MIPS cost about $10 Million with Mainframes. Only the largest corporations could afford such prices. Today, the cost is about $.80 (if not lower) for 1MIPS. Any business-large or small can afford that and needs to start immediately. Why? Well think about this.
Dr. Gordon Moore, a cofounder of Intel, said in the 1960’s microprocessor speed would double every eighteen months and the price would be cut in half. Francis McInereny coined the term “Moore Time”. He wrote in his fascinating book, FutureWealth: “To compete in a world where price-performance changes so dramatically, decisions have to be made at warp speed. Otherwise, products are obsolete long before they can be brought to market”. Whether they know it or not businesses are operating in “Moore Time”. It's about communicating and making decisions at "Warp Speed". There is not much time to waste.
These are the topics which interest me. This is about what I will comment on this blog and this is about what I will speak in my presentaions. The relationship betwwen the plummeting price of information and the phenomenal rise in the speed of computing, the internet and how al three impact business and society.