Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Google's not-so-very-secret weapon

"'Google has constructed the biggest computer in the world, and it's a hidden asset,' said Danny Hillis, a supercomputing pioneer and the cofounder of Applied Minds, a technology consulting firm, referring to the Googleplex."

What differentiates Google from Microsoft and Yahoo (among others) is that they are building huge computer networks with ease, using a system that is almost totally automated, while Microsoft, for one, spends countless man-hours tweaking their network for better load balancing, farming out some of the heavy lifting to other companies. Google seems to have figured this out back in the dissertation days and is still trying to come up with enough stuff to tax the system. Woe be to many of us if it ever collapses, but somehow I think Yahoo and Microsoft have more too worry about in that area too.

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