Infoworld’s Neil McAllister has compiled a list of what he counts as the top twenty greatest blunders in tech history.
Some of them are not quite so much blunders as they are examples of entrepreneurs or innovations that missed the mark with their ideas.
IPv6 gets a mention;
12. IPv6. Few topics spark more debate than IT’s equivalent of global warming. According to some experts, the question isn’t whether we will run out of IPv4 network addresses, but how soon. And there’s no Kyoto controversy here; federal policy already requires that government offices transition to IPv6 by 2008. So why is everyone still dragging their feet? Quite simply, IPv6 is a fix for a problem nobody has yet. Stopgap solutions such as NAT, while infuriating to network engineers, have proven effective. And IPv6 offers no compelling features to offset the headache of implementing it. In other words, until someone offers the equivalent of carbon credits for networking, IPv6 is one truth that’s just too inconvenient.
His point on IPv6 is pretty much spot on. As technologists we can see a point when NAT will just not offer enough headroom for adding more users to the internet, and we can see the opportunity that comes from devices and sensor networks that would be enabled by IPv6 deployment.
Despite that I still don’t think anybody has done a sound job of expressing all this in terms that our political and business leaders can take hold of.
Maybe now, in these times of infrastructure focused stimulus packages, we will see governments investing in IPv6 enabled infrastructure. To date though, across all of the countries that I’m tracking, I see no such initiative.
This year will be a focusing one for those folks who are involved in promoting IPv6 deployment, they will be thinking in terms of the benefits that IPv6 will bring to local and international ICT markets and working out how to express that to political and business leaders in terms that make sense to them.
What new types of applications can they see? How many more people will be employed as a result? How many new businesses might exist if IPv6 was enabled in their country today? and of course, What is the net addition to GDP that will eventually result from deployment of IPv6 infrastructure?
The focus on infrastructure in these stimulus packages isn’t because building a bridge will employ a few hundred road workers, it is because a new bridge will connect communities, open up new trade routes, make commuters more efficient while also giving them access to new job markets.
The argument for IPv6 is similar in many ways, we just need to get beyond the technicalities of the discussion and focus on the advantages that deployment brings.
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