Next thing you know, the tiny startup steps onto the stage in a tight partnership with a vendor that has huge volume in commodity servers, an enormous distribution network, and lots of datacenter customers.

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He predicts that Cisco's territory, which is the core of the computer network, will become a commodity whose value lies only in its ability to move bits as quickly as possible (although, to be fair to Cisco, it is a commodity that many firms would love to supply).

ECONOMIST: 3Com

Because SDN runs on commodity hardware, it could translate into siginficant savings for network operators.

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This is an important corner to turn for any digital product because of the potential elevation from a price-sensitive commodity to a locked-in ecosystem subject to the expansive laws of network effects.

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In next-generation computing, intelligent devices will control service on the network, and bandwidth -- once a profit center for telecom carriers -- will become a commodity, Capellas said.

CNN: Telecom '99: Compaq CEO predicts computing's future