10.5 Research and Discussion Issues

Is the demand for processing power, storage capacity, and communication bandwidth insatiable? Or do you believe that it will become increasingly difficult to justify the research, development, and capital costs of technological advances on the basis of commercial applications? If the latter, do you believe that governments will increasingly fund technological advances for the benefit of exotic military or intelligence applications?
Because of the ease with which information replication occurs in userprogrammable platforms, content suppliers have largely avoided them in favor of information appliances with built-in rights management facilities (see section 8.1.5). Do you think this will be an impetus for information appliances? Or will rights management facilities be incorporated into programmable platforms?
Is the evolution from appliances to general-purpose platforms back to appliances observable in other (more mature) industries, or is software unique? Consider, for example, the electric motor.
What effect do you believe information appliances and pervasive computing will have on the fortunes of software companies? How will pricing and revenue models be different?
Issues like battery life and physical size have a considerable effect on mobile computing platforms. Because of these and other considerations, do you believe that the trend is toward a proliferation of appliances for different functions, or an integration of a standard set of functions in a single appliance?