2003-05-12

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Paradise lost

It is not that Moore's law has suddenly ceased to apply. In fact, Mr Moore makes a good case that Intel can continue to double transistor density every 18 months for another decade. The real issue is whether this still matters. “The industry has entered its post-technological period, in which it is no longer technology itself that is central, but the value it provides to business and consumers,” says Irving Wladawsky-Berger, a senior manager at IBM and another grey-haired industry elder. Scholars of economic history are not surprised. Whether steam or railways, electricity or steel, mass production or cars—all technological revolutions have gone through similar long-term cycles and have eventually come of age, argues Carlota Perez, a researcher at Britain's University of Sussex, in her book “Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital: The Dynamics of Bubbles and Golden Ages” (Edward Elgar, 2002).