By The New York Times
Dell announced on Monday that it would acquire the information technology provider Perot Systems for $3.9 billion as it seeks to expand beyond its core personal computer business.
Michael Dell, the company’s founder and chief executive, has spent much of the recession talking about directing his company’s cash stockpile toward acquisitions, particularly in the services arena. By agreeing to buy Perot Systems, for $30 a share in cash, Dell has made just such a purchase. But even with the acquisition, Dell’s services arm would remain far smaller those of rivals Hewlett-Packard and I.B.M.
Perot Systems, based in Plano, Tex., handles a wide range of technology services, including data center management, software and consulting.
Perot Systems is “a premium asset with great people that enhances our opportunities for immediate and long-term growth,” Mr. Dell said in a statement. “There will be efficiencies from combining the companies, but the acquisition makes such great sense because of the obvious ways our businesses complement each other.”
Dell and Perot Systems, which was founded in 1988 by H. Ross Perot, said that the terms of the deal had been approved by the boards of both companies. Perot Systems, which had revenue last year of $2.8 billion, will become Dell’s services unit and be led by Peter Altabef, the Perot Systems chief executive. Ross Perot Jr., the chairman, is expected to join the Dell board.
“Today’s announcement is the next step in formalizing a relationship that has flourished for some time,” Ross Perot Jr. said in the statement. “When my father founded Perot Systems, he envisioned a global information-technology leader. The new, larger Dell builds on that promise and its own successes by taking Perot Systems’ expertise to more customers than ever.”
The combined heft of Perot Systems and Dell’s own services organization should result in about $8 billion of services revenue annually, according to Dell’s statement. Services deals tend to have far higher margins than selling things like PC’s and computer servers.
Since its overall business has slowed significantly in recent years, Dell has been exploring more profitable growth areas. It has been slowly building up its own services division through smaller acquisitions over the last two years. It has claimed to offer lower-priced services than its larger rivals and Indian services firm.
But the acquisition of Perot Systems now places Dell in much the same arena as its competitors.
Dell, based in Round Rock, Tex., is one of the world’s largest computer makers, with a customer base that includes corporate, government and home users. Dell said in late August that its profit fell 23 percent to $472 million in the three months through the end of July, as businesses reduced their computer purchases and prices tumbled. Revenue fell 22 percent to $12.8 billion.
For the fourth straight quarter, the No. 2 marker of PCs maker posted a drop in sales and profit from a year earlier. But in a sign Dell’s business may be stabilizing, it said sales rose slightly from earlier this year.
Dell posted earnings for its fiscal second quarter ended July 31 of $472 million, or 24 cents a share, down from $616 million, or 31 cents, a year earlier. Revenue was $12.76 billion, down 22% from a year ago.
Showing posts with label desktops. Show all posts
Showing posts with label desktops. Show all posts
Monday, September 21, 2009
Thursday, September 10, 2009
AMD: Time to Play Down Chip Speed in Marketing PCs
By The Wall Street Journal
There was a time when people cared a lot about the microprocessors in their PCs–a bit like teenagers once bragged that their Impala had a 450-horsepower V8 engine under the hood. Advanced Micro Devices seems to be betting those days are over.
The Silicon Valley company–perennial underdog to Intel in the microprocessor wars–has been sending out signals that it wants to move away from marketing such chips based on how fast they are. Customers don’t need to know that kind of techie stuff–what’s more important is what desktops with one of its chips does, what chores it’s best suited for. A new marketing campaign based on that concept, dubbed Vision, is expected to be announced Thursday.
To some extent, the strategy smacks of capitulation. AMD, which from 2003 to 2006 boasted a performance edge over Intel, subsequently fell behind because of its own execution issues and Intel picking up its game. The problem was exacerbated by a line of Intel chips, code-named Nehalem, that matched one of AMD’s key technical advantages and added other design benefits.
That technology has been available since November to buyers of high-end desktop PCs, willing to pay for a chip called Core i7 that lists for $999. But Intel on Monday introduced versions of that speedy chip line that list at the more mainstream price points of $284 to $562, and a model called iV that starts at $196. Those chips add to the pressures on AMD in desktop PCs.
At the same time, Intel shook up the portable market with an ultra-small chip called Atom that helped fuel the market for netbooks, low-end laptops that frequently cost less than $300. AMD hasn’t much played in that fast-growing market.
But AMD does have one advantage, brought about by its costly purchase of ATI Technologies several years ago–chips that excel at high-performance graphics and related chores such as running high-quality video. AMD executives argue that those media-heavy chores are becoming more and more important to users than the general-purpose number crunching that is usually handled by microprocessors.
Meanwhile, Intel’s own messaging has become complicated by a proliferation of brand names. Though the company in June pledged to simplify the mix, for the moment it retains the brands Atom, Celeron, Pentium and Core (the latter mainly referring to chips that have the core circuitry of more than one processor). Intel also seems wedded to the idea of trying to get customers to search out computers based on its technology, an approach known as ingredient branding.
Some think AMD can endear itself to PC makers by playing down its own technology while helping customers choose the right laptop. AMD marketing materials might suggest that one be good for watching regular videos, one might be good for watching high-definition videos and a third might be good at making high-definition videos.
The customer “doesn’t care that it’s AMD” supplying chips for the machine. It’s very zen. AMD has to deny itself to realize itself.
Update: In a news release describing the Vision effort early Thursday, AMD said new notebooks based with its technology are expected to be widely available on retail shelves and online during the holiday buying season, timed to the release of the Windows 7 operating system from Microsoft.
The company said it will use three basic terms–Vision Basic, Vision Premium and Vision Ultimate–to describe a range of capabilities from simply creation of digital content to content creation. In other words a classic “good, better, best” kind of labeling. In the first quarter of 2010, AMD plans to introduce a fourth level, Vision Black, to apply to high end gaming PCs that use its technology.
There was a time when people cared a lot about the microprocessors in their PCs–a bit like teenagers once bragged that their Impala had a 450-horsepower V8 engine under the hood. Advanced Micro Devices seems to be betting those days are over.
The Silicon Valley company–perennial underdog to Intel in the microprocessor wars–has been sending out signals that it wants to move away from marketing such chips based on how fast they are. Customers don’t need to know that kind of techie stuff–what’s more important is what desktops with one of its chips does, what chores it’s best suited for. A new marketing campaign based on that concept, dubbed Vision, is expected to be announced Thursday.
To some extent, the strategy smacks of capitulation. AMD, which from 2003 to 2006 boasted a performance edge over Intel, subsequently fell behind because of its own execution issues and Intel picking up its game. The problem was exacerbated by a line of Intel chips, code-named Nehalem, that matched one of AMD’s key technical advantages and added other design benefits.That technology has been available since November to buyers of high-end desktop PCs, willing to pay for a chip called Core i7 that lists for $999. But Intel on Monday introduced versions of that speedy chip line that list at the more mainstream price points of $284 to $562, and a model called iV that starts at $196. Those chips add to the pressures on AMD in desktop PCs.
At the same time, Intel shook up the portable market with an ultra-small chip called Atom that helped fuel the market for netbooks, low-end laptops that frequently cost less than $300. AMD hasn’t much played in that fast-growing market.
But AMD does have one advantage, brought about by its costly purchase of ATI Technologies several years ago–chips that excel at high-performance graphics and related chores such as running high-quality video. AMD executives argue that those media-heavy chores are becoming more and more important to users than the general-purpose number crunching that is usually handled by microprocessors.
Meanwhile, Intel’s own messaging has become complicated by a proliferation of brand names. Though the company in June pledged to simplify the mix, for the moment it retains the brands Atom, Celeron, Pentium and Core (the latter mainly referring to chips that have the core circuitry of more than one processor). Intel also seems wedded to the idea of trying to get customers to search out computers based on its technology, an approach known as ingredient branding.
Some think AMD can endear itself to PC makers by playing down its own technology while helping customers choose the right laptop. AMD marketing materials might suggest that one be good for watching regular videos, one might be good for watching high-definition videos and a third might be good at making high-definition videos.
The customer “doesn’t care that it’s AMD” supplying chips for the machine. It’s very zen. AMD has to deny itself to realize itself.
Update: In a news release describing the Vision effort early Thursday, AMD said new notebooks based with its technology are expected to be widely available on retail shelves and online during the holiday buying season, timed to the release of the Windows 7 operating system from Microsoft.
The company said it will use three basic terms–Vision Basic, Vision Premium and Vision Ultimate–to describe a range of capabilities from simply creation of digital content to content creation. In other words a classic “good, better, best” kind of labeling. In the first quarter of 2010, AMD plans to introduce a fourth level, Vision Black, to apply to high end gaming PCs that use its technology.
Dell Offers Peek At Notebook Thinner Than Apple Air
By Information Week
Dell on Wednesday offered a peek at a "design concept" for a stylish, high-end laptop that could become the computer maker's next challenge to Apple's MacBook Air.
A profile of the laptop, which would be the newest addition to Dell's ultra-thin Adamo line of notebooks, is shown on a Web site specially created to show off the PC. The system is slightly less than four-tenths of an inch thick. That's almost half the thickness of the first Adamo Dell released in March. That system is 0.65 of an inch thick, which is the same as the Air.
Dell is clearly going after Apple's Air with its Adamo line. In sending an email announcing the new Adamo site, Dell called the latest line of laptops a "design concept" and gave no other details.
The Air and current Adamo have starting prices of $1,499. The Air has a faster Core 2 Duo processor, 1.86 GHz versus 1.2 GHz, but the Adamo comes with a solid-state drive instead of a hard drive. Both systems have 13-inch displays, but the Air weighs three pounds and the Adam four pounds.
Dell used the same marketing scheme in trying to generate buzz for the first Adamo. The company launched a teaser site in December 2008, the month before Dell showed the system briefly at the Consumer Electronics Shows in Las Vegas.
Ultra-thin laptops under an inch thick are alternatives to less-expensive netbooks. The thin systems typically have more power, full-size keyboards and larger displays than the mini-notebooks--as well as bigger profit margins, making them more attractive to vendors.
Dell on Wednesday offered a peek at a "design concept" for a stylish, high-end laptop that could become the computer maker's next challenge to Apple's MacBook Air.
A profile of the laptop, which would be the newest addition to Dell's ultra-thin Adamo line of notebooks, is shown on a Web site specially created to show off the PC. The system is slightly less than four-tenths of an inch thick. That's almost half the thickness of the first Adamo Dell released in March. That system is 0.65 of an inch thick, which is the same as the Air.
Dell is clearly going after Apple's Air with its Adamo line. In sending an email announcing the new Adamo site, Dell called the latest line of laptops a "design concept" and gave no other details.
The Air and current Adamo have starting prices of $1,499. The Air has a faster Core 2 Duo processor, 1.86 GHz versus 1.2 GHz, but the Adamo comes with a solid-state drive instead of a hard drive. Both systems have 13-inch displays, but the Air weighs three pounds and the Adam four pounds.
Dell used the same marketing scheme in trying to generate buzz for the first Adamo. The company launched a teaser site in December 2008, the month before Dell showed the system briefly at the Consumer Electronics Shows in Las Vegas.
Ultra-thin laptops under an inch thick are alternatives to less-expensive netbooks. The thin systems typically have more power, full-size keyboards and larger displays than the mini-notebooks--as well as bigger profit margins, making them more attractive to vendors.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
The PC Goes on an Energy Diet
Personal computers suck up enormous amounts of electricity—often when they aren't even being used. Manufacturers are tackling the problem.
By The Wall Street Journal
Some of the biggest energy hogs in a company sit in front of workers everyday: their PCs.
For a company that has 10,000 personal-computer desktops, for example, just leaving most of them turned on all night can cost more than $165,000 a year in electricity bills, while spewing more than 1,380 tons of carbon dioxide into the air per year.
That's roughly the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that come from driving a car for two months. In all, estimates are upwards of $1.7 billion that is being wasted in the U.S. with about 15 million tons of carbon emitted by desktops left on overnight.
As a result, corporate IT managers are clamoring for ways to rein in their PCs energy and expenses. And technology manufacturers are responding. For instance, Array Networks Inc. last November announced that its Desktop Direct program would let people remotely access their desktop even when it is turned off. Dell Inc. says the displays on its laptops use 43% less energy after older cathode screens have been swapped out with more efficient LED ones. And Hewlett-Packard Co. says its has saved 41% energy consumption on its lineup of PCs, compared with 2005 models, because of fewer components and other factors. Many other technology manufacturers are going green, as well.
In the end, this all adds up to smart business.
Returns on Investment
Developers say its desktop energy consumption has stayed roughly the same despite increasing the work force to 50 from 30 employees since 2008 because it switched to more efficient machines. The company's 200 desktops, laptops and refurbished laptops from H-P use about 40% less power than earlier models.
The move to greener PCs has picked up steam over the past five years, following mounting pressure from shareholders and environmental groups to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions that most scientists believe cause global warming. The PC makers have also faced heat for not doing enough to keep obsolete models out of the scrap heap. Many have since launched computer take-back programs, and have also switched to more recyclable materials.
Leading the Way
Three of the more active manufacturers in green PCs have been Dell, H-P and Apple Inc.
H-P, which has long operated an environmental program, ramped up its efforts on PCs in 2005 after someone asked, "What more can we do?," H-P redesigned its entire PC product line in 12 months, beginning in 2006, to include green features such as more efficient power supplies and the ability to go into power-saving sleep mode faster.
More recently, H-P in 2008 launched an EliteBook line of laptops that lets the user access email, calendars and contacts without having to power up the computer. The laptops use a technology called QuickLook, a separate, miniature operating system that doesn't require booting up the machine's main OS. QuickLook is also a feature on H-P's ProBook line of laptops.
Earlier this year, the company began shipping some consumer laptops featuring batteries that can hold a charge for as long as three years. That saves energy because they don't have to be recharged as much, H-P officials say.
Meanwhile, Dell over the past few years has revamped its OptiPlex desktops and Latitude laptops to include energy-saving features. Last year, the Round Rock, Texas, company introduced Latitude models that also can access email and Internet sites without booting up the computer; these models also have batteries that last twice as long as those of the previous model—six hours instead of three. One of the biggest savings, Dell officials say, has come from the shift to LED screens on laptops.
Among the biggest beneficiaries of the energy savings: Dell itself. The company more than a year ago installed night shut-off software in 50,000 desktops and notebooks across a number of its operations world-wide, achieving an estimated $1.8 million in power savings annually.
At Apple, company officials play up another benefit of green PCs: their reduced carbon output. The Cupertino, Calif., company calculates the amount of carbon each model uses. In the case of the MacBook Air laptop launched in 2008, the company says 43% of its carbon emissions come from the energy it uses. So to cut down on energy, the MacBook is equipped with features such as more efficient power supplies and enhanced sleep mode. The new 13-inch MacBook Pro released earlier this year draws just 15 watts when idle with display on—a quarter of the power needed to run a single household lightbulb—versus about double that for some other new laptops.
Remote Control
Software makers are also stepping up to address the problem of PC energy. Some programs currently being used let IT managers remotely adjust energy use of computers—such as being able to shut them off when not in use. They say their customers have saved more than $30 million in energy costs since it began offering the service about three years ago.
One customer, Cox Communications Inc., says it has seen a 40% drop in energy consumption in 15,000 desktops and used laptops since the company began deploying Surveyor last April. The Atlanta cable firm, a unit of Cox Enterprises Inc., uses Surveyor to remotely turn on desktops at night when they need software updates, and then turn them back off when the download is complete, says Peter West, vice president of IT and operational development.
By The Wall Street Journal
Some of the biggest energy hogs in a company sit in front of workers everyday: their PCs.
For a company that has 10,000 personal-computer desktops, for example, just leaving most of them turned on all night can cost more than $165,000 a year in electricity bills, while spewing more than 1,380 tons of carbon dioxide into the air per year.
That's roughly the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that come from driving a car for two months. In all, estimates are upwards of $1.7 billion that is being wasted in the U.S. with about 15 million tons of carbon emitted by desktops left on overnight.
As a result, corporate IT managers are clamoring for ways to rein in their PCs energy and expenses. And technology manufacturers are responding. For instance, Array Networks Inc. last November announced that its Desktop Direct program would let people remotely access their desktop even when it is turned off. Dell Inc. says the displays on its laptops use 43% less energy after older cathode screens have been swapped out with more efficient LED ones. And Hewlett-Packard Co. says its has saved 41% energy consumption on its lineup of PCs, compared with 2005 models, because of fewer components and other factors. Many other technology manufacturers are going green, as well.
In the end, this all adds up to smart business.
Returns on Investment
Developers say its desktop energy consumption has stayed roughly the same despite increasing the work force to 50 from 30 employees since 2008 because it switched to more efficient machines. The company's 200 desktops, laptops and refurbished laptops from H-P use about 40% less power than earlier models.
The move to greener PCs has picked up steam over the past five years, following mounting pressure from shareholders and environmental groups to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions that most scientists believe cause global warming. The PC makers have also faced heat for not doing enough to keep obsolete models out of the scrap heap. Many have since launched computer take-back programs, and have also switched to more recyclable materials.
Leading the Way
Three of the more active manufacturers in green PCs have been Dell, H-P and Apple Inc.
H-P, which has long operated an environmental program, ramped up its efforts on PCs in 2005 after someone asked, "What more can we do?," H-P redesigned its entire PC product line in 12 months, beginning in 2006, to include green features such as more efficient power supplies and the ability to go into power-saving sleep mode faster.
More recently, H-P in 2008 launched an EliteBook line of laptops that lets the user access email, calendars and contacts without having to power up the computer. The laptops use a technology called QuickLook, a separate, miniature operating system that doesn't require booting up the machine's main OS. QuickLook is also a feature on H-P's ProBook line of laptops.
Earlier this year, the company began shipping some consumer laptops featuring batteries that can hold a charge for as long as three years. That saves energy because they don't have to be recharged as much, H-P officials say.
Meanwhile, Dell over the past few years has revamped its OptiPlex desktops and Latitude laptops to include energy-saving features. Last year, the Round Rock, Texas, company introduced Latitude models that also can access email and Internet sites without booting up the computer; these models also have batteries that last twice as long as those of the previous model—six hours instead of three. One of the biggest savings, Dell officials say, has come from the shift to LED screens on laptops.
Among the biggest beneficiaries of the energy savings: Dell itself. The company more than a year ago installed night shut-off software in 50,000 desktops and notebooks across a number of its operations world-wide, achieving an estimated $1.8 million in power savings annually.
At Apple, company officials play up another benefit of green PCs: their reduced carbon output. The Cupertino, Calif., company calculates the amount of carbon each model uses. In the case of the MacBook Air laptop launched in 2008, the company says 43% of its carbon emissions come from the energy it uses. So to cut down on energy, the MacBook is equipped with features such as more efficient power supplies and enhanced sleep mode. The new 13-inch MacBook Pro released earlier this year draws just 15 watts when idle with display on—a quarter of the power needed to run a single household lightbulb—versus about double that for some other new laptops.
Remote Control
Software makers are also stepping up to address the problem of PC energy. Some programs currently being used let IT managers remotely adjust energy use of computers—such as being able to shut them off when not in use. They say their customers have saved more than $30 million in energy costs since it began offering the service about three years ago.
One customer, Cox Communications Inc., says it has seen a 40% drop in energy consumption in 15,000 desktops and used laptops since the company began deploying Surveyor last April. The Atlanta cable firm, a unit of Cox Enterprises Inc., uses Surveyor to remotely turn on desktops at night when they need software updates, and then turn them back off when the download is complete, says Peter West, vice president of IT and operational development.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
A Data Deluge Swamps Science Historians
As Paper Trails Fade, Digital Material Grows in Size and Complexity; How to Decipher Those 80-Column Punch Cards
By The Wall Street Journal
In a vault beneath the British Library here, some grapple with a formidable challenge in digital life. The library's first curator of eManuscripts, is working on ways to archive the deluge of computer data swamping scientists so that future generations can authenticate today's discoveries and better understand the people who made them.
Their task is only getting harder. Scientists who use laptops to collaborate via email, Google, YouTube, Flickr and Facebook are leaving fewer paper trails, while the information technologies that do document their accomplishments can be incomprehensible to other researchers and historians trying to read them. PCs -intensive experiments and the software used to analyze their output generate millions of gigabytes of data that are stored or retrieved by electronic systems that quickly become obsolete.
It would be tragic if there were no record of lives that were so influential.
Usually, historians are hard-pressed to find any original source material about those who have shaped our civilization. In the Internet era, scholars of science might have too much. Never have so many people generated so much digital data or been able to lose so much of it so quickly. Desktops world-wide generate enough digital data every 15 minutes to fill the U.S. Library of Congress.
In fact, more technical data have been collected in the past year alone than in all previous years since science began. The data is doubling every year.
The problem is forcing historians to become scientists, and scientists to become archivists and curators. Digital records, unlike laboratory notebooks, can't be read without the proper hardware, software and passwords. Electronic copies are difficult to verify and are easy to alter or forge. Digital records "can be more direct, more immediate and more candid. But how can we demonstrate to people in the future that these are the real thing?
These files likely contained crucial drafts of research papers, emails and other information that could illuminate an influential life of science, as recorded through 40 years of computing technology.
To extract the antiquated data required more than a password.Scientist gradually assembled a collection of vintage computers, old tape drives and forensic data-recovery devices in a locked library sub-basement.
For more than a decade, policy makers and data experts have been debating the best way to preserve important digital records. "What you keep and how you pay for it are difficult issues.
The growing scale of new science projects, however, has university data custodians worried. We are swimming in data these days, and people are overwhelmed.
Consider a new computerized star atlas called the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Using a telescope in New Mexico, the project in its first two days collected more data than gathered in all the previous history of astronomy. Its final data set catalogs 230 million celestial objects, encompassing 930,000 galaxies, 120,000 quasars and 225,000 stars, all encoded in 140 terabytes of digital data.
The next generation of experiments will be even more data-intensive. A new proton smasher near Geneva called the Large Hadron Collider is supposed to produce 15 million gigabytes of data annually -- enough to fill more than 1.7 million DVDs every year. The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, an astronomy program under construction in northern Chile slated to launch in 2016, will regularly image the entire sky, recording more than 30,000 gigabytes of data every night.
Earlier this month, the U.S. National Science Foundation awarded $20 million to the Data Conservancy and another $20 million to the DataONE group to develop more effective data-preservation tools over the next five years, especially for researchers working on their own or in small teams.
For future generations to get much use from 21st-century data, though, it won't be enough to simply archive email exchanges and file formats. The problem is to actually capture the way scientists interact with the data. Today's graduate students are starting to use instant messaging in their scientific work. We have to figure out how to capture these.
In the long run, no scientific data can outlast the storage media that contains it, unless it can be accurately recopied and reliably re-authenticated. Many computer CDs, DVDs and flash drives last only a decade or so. The oldest known star atlas, inscribed on a scroll discovered in Dunhuang, China, has survived for more than 1,000 years. It might have been traced from an even older star map.
Earlier this year, researchers unveiled a memory chip designed to last for centuries. In April, physicists published the design of a digital device that could store data for a billion years, at least in theory.
By The Wall Street Journal
In a vault beneath the British Library here, some grapple with a formidable challenge in digital life. The library's first curator of eManuscripts, is working on ways to archive the deluge of computer data swamping scientists so that future generations can authenticate today's discoveries and better understand the people who made them.Their task is only getting harder. Scientists who use laptops to collaborate via email, Google, YouTube, Flickr and Facebook are leaving fewer paper trails, while the information technologies that do document their accomplishments can be incomprehensible to other researchers and historians trying to read them. PCs -intensive experiments and the software used to analyze their output generate millions of gigabytes of data that are stored or retrieved by electronic systems that quickly become obsolete.
It would be tragic if there were no record of lives that were so influential.
Usually, historians are hard-pressed to find any original source material about those who have shaped our civilization. In the Internet era, scholars of science might have too much. Never have so many people generated so much digital data or been able to lose so much of it so quickly. Desktops world-wide generate enough digital data every 15 minutes to fill the U.S. Library of Congress.
In fact, more technical data have been collected in the past year alone than in all previous years since science began. The data is doubling every year.
The problem is forcing historians to become scientists, and scientists to become archivists and curators. Digital records, unlike laboratory notebooks, can't be read without the proper hardware, software and passwords. Electronic copies are difficult to verify and are easy to alter or forge. Digital records "can be more direct, more immediate and more candid. But how can we demonstrate to people in the future that these are the real thing?
These files likely contained crucial drafts of research papers, emails and other information that could illuminate an influential life of science, as recorded through 40 years of computing technology.
To extract the antiquated data required more than a password.Scientist gradually assembled a collection of vintage computers, old tape drives and forensic data-recovery devices in a locked library sub-basement.
For more than a decade, policy makers and data experts have been debating the best way to preserve important digital records. "What you keep and how you pay for it are difficult issues.
The growing scale of new science projects, however, has university data custodians worried. We are swimming in data these days, and people are overwhelmed.
Consider a new computerized star atlas called the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Using a telescope in New Mexico, the project in its first two days collected more data than gathered in all the previous history of astronomy. Its final data set catalogs 230 million celestial objects, encompassing 930,000 galaxies, 120,000 quasars and 225,000 stars, all encoded in 140 terabytes of digital data.
The next generation of experiments will be even more data-intensive. A new proton smasher near Geneva called the Large Hadron Collider is supposed to produce 15 million gigabytes of data annually -- enough to fill more than 1.7 million DVDs every year. The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, an astronomy program under construction in northern Chile slated to launch in 2016, will regularly image the entire sky, recording more than 30,000 gigabytes of data every night.
Earlier this month, the U.S. National Science Foundation awarded $20 million to the Data Conservancy and another $20 million to the DataONE group to develop more effective data-preservation tools over the next five years, especially for researchers working on their own or in small teams.
For future generations to get much use from 21st-century data, though, it won't be enough to simply archive email exchanges and file formats. The problem is to actually capture the way scientists interact with the data. Today's graduate students are starting to use instant messaging in their scientific work. We have to figure out how to capture these.
In the long run, no scientific data can outlast the storage media that contains it, unless it can be accurately recopied and reliably re-authenticated. Many computer CDs, DVDs and flash drives last only a decade or so. The oldest known star atlas, inscribed on a scroll discovered in Dunhuang, China, has survived for more than 1,000 years. It might have been traced from an even older star map.
Earlier this year, researchers unveiled a memory chip designed to last for centuries. In April, physicists published the design of a digital device that could store data for a billion years, at least in theory.
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