Weby
The disappointment that some feel over the recent delays is unfortunate, but I believe that it is the product of errors by the wavoid community just as much as it has been caused by inaccurate predictions by SKS. There has been too much of a “Kaboom!” seeking attitude among some, and when the Kaboom! didn’t materialize, they felt let down. Others unrealistically clung to predictions of sales and adoption rates in an absolutist approach, ("these numbers better be right, or I will be mad") and then were angered when delays appeared. That is not SKS’s fault.
Wavoids need to realize that they have been phenomenally good at predicting a major paradigm change. It is a substantial achievement to see change like this coming down the path from so far away. It’s unusual for anyone in any part of their life to be able to predict things so far in the future. Heck, lots of people will have a tough time telling you what they are going to be doing with their own life years in advance, let alone what paradigm giant companies like Microsoft, IBM, and Intel will be switching to years ahead. For that, wavoids should give themselves a pat on the back. TCG is here, and everyone is implementing it.
Conversely, wavoids, including SKS, have been very bad at predicting the pace of the adoption of the technology. It is highly likely that this pattern of poor performance in predicting adoption rates will continue. Therefore, anyone who is saying things like “I’d better see something soon or…” are setting themselves up for disappointment.
Why? The milieu that swirls around the developing TCG standards and new products is exceedingly complex. It gets more complex every day. There are numerous players that can and do throw up roadblocks at any time. Think about the delays in the Seagate deal. First, a switch between SATA and PATA drives delayed deployment of the FDE drives. There may be other things that happen to cause further delays- it might be that until they get all of their pricing worked out, we can’t know with certainty how much we will make on each drive. Or, if the drives become commoditized quickly, (as Hitachi is starting to do) it will force the price down, and our cut may be less, as well. Or, maybe we are asking Seagate to allow us to get micropayments on the virtual secured parts of their drives, as their CEO said they might attempt. In reality, any number of things could be delaying the deal, and it is impossible to know, unless you have inside info.
Take the possible reasons for delays from Seagate and extrapolate them across all of the OEMs, etc. that Wave hopes to market to, and then also across all of the enterprises Wave hopes to sell to, who might choose to delay adoption for a quarter or two, and you have a Gordian knot that no one could cut. It’s like trying to predict the weather. There are so many variables at play that if you try to predict too far in the future, you are guaranteed to be wrong.
You can demand that numbers be given to you, but, until there have been at least a couple of quarters of documented, proven sales/licensing/bundling, etc., those numbers are just smoke. No one knows for sure.
What do we know? We know that adoption is here, and has happened. We also know that thus far, every TCG application that would require networks of TPMs from multiple manufacturers has used Wave as some part of their product software.
I like our position now, compared with one year ago, another failed round of predictions of the speed of adoption notwithstanding...
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