The primary reason the United States led in aerospace, communications technology, information technology, computing and the major new energy technologies of the later 20th century (gas turbines, nuclear, wind and solar power) is because the U.S. government made a series of smart investments on the cutting edge of each of these technology fields to catalyze entrepreneurship and innovation.
MySQL's lighter-weight database system may also fit into Sun's ambitions of becoming a major player in "utility computing, " a model of information technology infrastructure that pipes in software applications, processing and storage over the Internet rather than from a company's own data centers.
"This is a drop in the bucket, " says Paul Henry, a spokesman for information technology security firm Secure Computing.
"I wouldn't turn off your spam filter, " says Paul Henry, a spokesman for the information technology security firm Secure Computing (nasdaq: SCUR - news - people ).
By radically changing the information technology business model, cloud computing also challenges the traditional federal acquisition process.
My most important thesis is that the fundamental measures of information technology (such as the power of computing measured in calculations per second per constant dollar) follow remarkably predictable trajectories.
Sun's announcement marks the information technology industry's latest step toward "utility computing, " a grid system in which companies pipe in data processing and storage from faraway server farms, says Nicholas Carr, author of The Big Switch, a book on utility computing published earlier this week.
The fabrics represent the latest development in "pervasive computing, " the name applied to a new generation of communication and information technology that will be integrated into our environments.
In his latest book, tech pundit Nicholas Carr put a name on a trend that's transforming information technology: As the world becomes more networked, he points out, computing power is undergoing "the Big Switch, " moving off of desktops and into massive data centers, where it's cheaper and more efficient.
Teachers who understand computing is another: only 45% of primary school teachers and 36% in secondary schools have had information technology training in the past two years.
Goldman prefers investing in the software and services subsectors of the information-technology industry, which will benefit from the proliferation of smartphones, tables, cloud computing and increased e-commerce activity.
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