(By contrast, a bad word choice was "collision," used by Metcalfe in describing how traffic shares the ether. It caused trouble early on. "People know what collisions are. They're metal and glass and blood flowing everywhere. They didn't want collisions in their network.")
But the real reason for Ethernet's success wasn't so much in the technology as in the way it was sold: " 'Ethernet' is a business model," Metcalfe said.
The model was radical for its time: Ethernet was licensed for cheap, but it was enforced like a standard.
During the panel session, PARC colleague David Liddle, now general partner at U.S. Venture Partners, said Xerox charged a one-time license fee of just $1,000. That's in contrast to the huge fees associated with Token Ring.
Xerox's stipulation was that the technology couldn't be changed -- it had to interoperate with all other Ethernet implementations. "Thus we made a playing field in which we could all thrive and compete," Liddle said.
To realize the benefits of cloud-native software, an application must actually be cloud-native—designed to run in the cloud, interacting with disaggregated cloud services, fully manageable as code—to deliver the expected benefits.
By combining resources and expertise, the AI-Enabled ICT Workforce Consortium will offer a blueprint for how industries can adapt to an AI-dominated future.
IT leaders should heed the guidance of cybersecurity insurance providers who think businesses should prioritize security education, incident preparedness, regular internal audits, and ongoing vulnerability scanning and patching.
