Bill Gates Thinks Hardware Will be Almost Free

[Keefe]

Mr. Gates is at it again and today he thinks that hardware costs will be next to nothing within the next 10 years:

"Ten years out, in terms of actual hardware costs you can almost think of hardware as being free -- I'm not saying it will be absolutely free -- but in terms of the power of the servers, the power of the network will not be a limiting factor," Gates said, referring to networked computers and advances in the speed of the Internet."

I think it should be the other way around, don't you?

Well, I would hope that the hardware itself should be getting faster and faster. I know that we're hitting a high spot in the exponential curve right now, but with the introduction of 64bit, we should be shooting back up again. I don't see it happening though, because those servers are going to have to be DAMN fast to power that many computers at that fast of a rate, and that's where the cost will be.