舊科技演化創新 繼續吃香 Technology That Evolves to Survive By Steve Lohr IN 1991, Stewart Alsop, the editor of InfoWorld and a thoughtful observer of industry trends, predicted that the last mainframe computer would be unplugged by 1996. In February, I.B.M. introduced the latest version of its mainframe, the aged yet remarkably resilient warhorse of computing. 1991年，對產業趨勢觀察入微的《資訊世界》總編輯史都華‧艾索普預言， 到1996年，最後一部大型電腦勢必拔下插頭退場。但到今年2月，I.B.M.還在發表 最新版本的大型電腦。這種大型主機老驥伏櫪，依舊志在千里。 Today, mainframe sales are a tiny fraction of the personal computer market. But with the mainframe facing extinction, I.B.M. retooled the technology, cut prices and revamped its strategy. A result is that mainframe technology remains a large and lucrative business for I.B.M., and mainframes are still the back-office engines behind the world’s financial markets and much of global commerce. 今天，大型電腦的銷量只占個人電腦市場一小部分，不過，I.B.M.在其瀕絕 之際，重整其科技，削減售價，並調整發展策略。結果，大型電腦科技迄今仍是 I.B.M.旗下獲利頗豐的重要部門，而且大型電腦還是全球金融市場和大多數全球 商業活動後勤支援部門的核心引擎。 The mainframe stands as a telling case in the larger story of survivor technologies and markets. The demise of the old technology is confidently predicted, and indeed it may lose ground to the insurgent, as mainframes did to the personal computer. But the old technology or business often finds a sustainable, profitable life. Television, for example, was supposed to kill radio, and movies, for that matter. Cars, trucks and planes spelled the death of railways. A current forecast is that the Web will kill print media. 在範圍更廣的科技與市場逆境求生的故事中，大型電腦只是一個鮮活的例子。 舊科技被鐵口斷言必死無疑，它們也的確像大型電腦面對個人電腦新秀挑戰一樣， 可能慘敗。不過，舊科技或老企業往往找得到永續生存與獲利之道。例如，同理， 電視照說應該殲滅收音機和電影；汽車、卡車和飛機，應該終結鐵路。而當前的預 言則是，網路勢必消滅平面媒體。 What are the common traits of survivor technologies? First, it seems, there is a core technology requirement: there must be some enduring advantage in the old technology that is not entirely supplanted by the new. But beyond that, it is the business decisions that matter most: investing to retool the traditional technology, adopting a new business model and nurturing a support network of loyal customers, industry partners and skilled workers. 這些打不死的舊科技有哪些共同特點﹖首先，似乎必須擁有核心科技：舊科技 必須有新科技無法完全取代，且歷久不衰的某種優勢。不過，除此之外，商業決策 還是最重要：肯投資重整傳統科技，採納新商業模式，培養由死忠顧客、產業夥伴 及技術勞工組成的支持網絡。 The unfulfilled predictions of demise, experts say, tend to overestimate the importance of pure technical innovation and underestimate the role of business judgment. “The rise and fall of technologies is mainly about business and not technological determinism,” said Richard S. Tedlow, a business historian at the Harvard Business School. 專家說，舊科技必定被消滅的預言落空，問題出在太高估純科技創新的重要性 ，低估商業判斷的角色。哈佛商學院商業史教授理查‧泰德洛說：「科技興衰，關 鍵在商業，而非科技決定論。」 To survive, technologies must evolve, much as animal species do in nature. Indeed, John Steele Gordon, a business historian and author, observes that there are striking similarities in the evolutionary process of markets and biological ecosystems. Dinosaurs, he notes, may be long gone, victims of a change in climate that better suited mammals. But smaller reptiles evolved and survived, and today there are more than 8,000 species of reptiles, mainly lizards and snakes, compared with about 5,400 species of mammals. 科技要圖存，勢須演化，就像物種在大自然裡求生。商業史專家兼作者約翰‧ 史提爾‧戈登觀察說，市場的演化過程和生物生態系統，相似度令人稱奇。他指出 ，恐龍雖然早就滅絕，成為對哺乳類動物有利之氣候變化的犧牲者。但體型較小的 爬蟲類就因為演化而倖存。今天，地球上的爬蟲類超過8千種，主要是蜥蜴和蛇類。 相較之下，哺乳類動物只有約5,400種。 As a media technology, radio is an evolutionary survivor. Its time as the entertainment hub of American households in the 1930s and ’40s gave way to the rise of television. 在媒介科技方面，收音機也算進化倖存者。收音機本來是1930和40年代美國家 庭娛樂重心，後被新崛起的電視趕上。 TV replaced radio as the box families gathered around in their living rooms. Instead, radio adopted shorter programming formats and became the background music and chat while people ride in cars or do other things at home – “audio wallpaper,” as Paul Saffo, a technology forecaster in Silicon Valley, puts it. 電視取代收音機，成為美國家庭在起居室裡圍觀的那個盒子。至於收音機，則 把機身變小，改變程式格式，成為人們開車或在屋裡做其他事情時的背景音樂和閒 談的話題。矽谷科技預測專家保羅‧沙佛則把收音機形容為「有聲壁紙」。 While television did pose a threat to movies, it also served as a prod to innovation, including failures like Smell-O-Vision but also wide-screen, rich-color technologies like Cinerama. The idea was to give viewers a more vivid, immersive experience than they could possibly have with television. 電視雖然同樣威脅到電影，但也強迫電影嘗試創新，包括出師未捷的嗅覺電影 和寬銀幕、色彩豐富的新藝拉瑪科技。它們的目的都在提供觀眾一個比電視更鮮活 、更難忘的體驗。 A change in the economic environment can sometimes lead to the renaissance of an older technology. Railroads, for example, have enjoyed a revival of investment recently as rising fuel costs and road congestion have prompted shippers to move from trucks to trains. 經濟環境改變，有時也使老舊科技東山再起。例如，最近因燃油成本飛漲，公 路堵塞，貨運業者棄卡車而就火車，鐵路重新掀起一股投資熱潮。 The weight of legacy is underestimated, said John Staudenmaier, editor of the journal Technology and Culture, because innovation is so often portrayed as a bold break with the past. 《科技與文化》期刊總編輯約翰‧史陶登麥爾說，由於創新經常被形容為勇於 除舊，所以舊科技的分量常被低估。 The mainframe is the classic survivor technology, and it owes its longevity to sound business decisions. I.B.M. overhauled the insides of the mainframe, using low-cost microprocessors as the computing engine. The company invested and updated the mainframe software, so that banks, corporations and government agencies could still rely on the mainframe as the reliable and secure computer for vital transactions and data, while allowing it to take on new chores like running Web-based programs. 大型電腦是典型的遺老科技，其高壽端賴健全的商業決策。I.B.M.徹底改造大 型主機內部，採用低成本微處理器做為運算引擎。公司還投資更新大型電腦軟體， 使銀行、企業和政府機關繼續仰賴大型電腦，做為關鍵交易與資料的安全靠山，同 時利用它們來執行諸如網頁程式等新的雜務。 “The mainframe survived its near-death experience and continues to thrive because customers didn’t care about the underlying technology,” said Irving Wladawsky-Berger, who led the technical transformation of the mainframe in the early 1990s and now teaches at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “Customers just wanted the mainframe to do its job at a lower cost, and I.B.M. made the investments to make that happen.” 1990年代初期負責大型電腦技術轉型工作，現在麻省理工學院任教的歐文‧瓦 拉道斯基─伯格說：「大型電腦能浴火重生，繼續茁壯成長，因為客戶對底層的科 技並不在乎。客戶只在乎大型電腦能否以低成本做好該做的事，而I.B.M的投資，為 客戶實現了這個願望。」 關鍵字句 Mainframe computer 可簡稱mainframe，就是大型電腦或主機，因為早期電腦體積 龐大，必須用整個房間或鐵架來供奉而得名，駭客（hackers）稱之為「大鐵盒 （Big Iron）」。 個人電腦（Personal Computer，PC）運算能力大幅提高後，運算力強，價錢昂貴的 大型電腦大多用在數據龐大的運算，如金融交易（financial transactions）、產 業與消費統計（industry and consumer statistics）、人口普查（census）等。 至於數據更龐大，速度要求更高的運算，如天文運算（astronomical operation）、 核武模擬（nuclear weapon simulations）、氣象預測（weather forecast）等，則 交給能力更強的超級電腦（supercomputer）。不過，現在也有人用mainframe來形容 高階商用電腦（high-end commercial machine），和運算能力較低的機器作區隔。 Back-office engine，指證券經紀公司（brokerage firm）支援交易的行政作業 （administrative functions），包括成交確認（trade confirmation）、清償 （settlement）等，但也指公司內部未直接涉及營業的支援行政部門，如維持電話 、電腦、會計及人力資源正常運作的資訊科技（IT）部門。 Back-office system通常指公司內負責銷售、採購及更新庫存（update the inventory）的系統，美國最流行把這類行政工作外包（outsourcing）給印度或其 他人力低廉的國家。 Smell-O-Vision和Cinerama是電影發展史上兩個失敗的例子，嗅覺電影始於1916年 ，當時電影仍在默片（silent film）階段，都是戲院主人在電影放映中玩散播香 氣（scents）的把戲（trick），後來因為味道會混雜在一起（becoming muddled） ，為人詬病；新藝拉瑪則是用三部35mm放映機把影片同步投射到寬銀幕上，再配合 六聲道的立體音響系統播放音效的技術，Cinerama就是這家公司的註冊商標 （trademark） 。 原文參見 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/23/technology/23digi.html　 http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/03/21/business/digi24.php　 -- 大弦嘈嘈如急雨，小弦切切如私語。 嘈嘈切切錯雜彈，大珠小珠落玉盤。 間關鶯語花底滑，幽咽泉流水下灘。 水泉冷澀弦凝絕，凝絕不通聲漸歇。 別有幽愁暗恨生，此時無聲勝有聲。 銀瓶乍破水漿迸，鐵騎突出刀槍鳴。 曲終收撥當心畫，四弦一聲如裂帛。 東船西舫悄無言，唯見江心秋月白。 --

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