Intel Developer Forum - the year of desktop Gigabit

This will be the year businesses start deploying Gigabit Ethernet to desktop computers in large numbers, Intel believes.

Speaking at the company's Developer Forum in San Francisco, Sean Maloney, general manager of the Intel Communications Group, said: "I've seen the roll-outs of three previous generations of Ethernet, and the situation now is like fast Ethernet in 1997."

Intel today unveiled three products that Maloney sees as a key first step in driving Gigabit Ethernet deployment - a single-chip desktop PC controller and two single-chip server controllers which will ship later this year.

Maloney could not name a specific killer app for Gigabit Ethernet, other than that "it's there". There are obvious performance benefits for existing applications, like Exchange Server synchronisation, but businesses will roll out Gigabit Ethernet as opposed to slower technologies just because the premium for doing so will be so low - about $20 per PC adapter.

Investing in Gigabit Ethernet builds a future-proof network with massively increased bandwidth even if the applications that will use it are not yet in place.

The technology will be particularly attractive to enterprises that have cut technology spending during the recession, and are looking to make up for long-delayed upgrades.

Says Maloney: "You don't come out of a recession with yesterday's technology, you come out of it with tomorrow's."

Read our Cheat Sheet on Gigabit Ethernet:
Cheat Sheet: 10 Gigabit Ethernet
http://www.silicon.com/a48736