Letter From The President

Crystal Ball

Recently, I was asked to look into my crystal ball to predict the computers of the next century. Looking back into the rearview mirror of SPEC's six-year history, I believe that most users will have consumer products with performance metric of 1000 SPEC_something, 2 GB RAM, 16 GB storage, video camera, multimedia, security, cellular phone, printer, FAX, CD ROM, virtual reality, TV, VCR, and will be human centric (keyboard optional). Everything will be measured in either giga- or tera-something!

Returning from the year 2000 to the 1994 SPEC benchathon in Austin, TX, I want to thank Mike Paton (Motorola), Jeff Garelick (IBM), and Dianne Rice (SPEC) for hosting it. I spent a few hours at this benchathon that was dedicated to SPEC95 suites. It was encouraging to see the progress we have made on the suite. At the same time, I realize that we need to revisit our release schedule.

Technological advances dictate that the SPEC95 suite must be better than SPEC92, not just different. I applaud joint efforts of Reinhold Weicker (Siemens Nixdorf), Jeff Reilly (Intel), Jeff Garelick (IBM), Phil Vitale (Hewlett-Packard), and others who provided analysis of the suite so OSSC can make an informed decision during the benchmark selection process.

I want to thank Krishna Dronamraju and Asif Naseem (AT&T/GIS) for hosting the Lisle benchathon. It appears that we are close to announcing SFS 1.1 release, and thanks to Tom Spuhler (Hewlett-Packard) and the SFS team for their hard work and focussed effort.

I am delighted that HPSC is zeroing in on their benchmark suite -- thanks Siamak Hassanzadeh (SUN) and Fiona Sim (IBM).

It is also very encouraging to see that our newsletter process is getting better and more efficient every day -- thanks Krishna Dronamraju, Dianne Rice, and NCGA.

I am indebted to SPEC Board, OSSC and HPSC Chairs and Vice Chairs, Release Managers, Editors, Planners, Legals, and NCGA for their dedication and contributions to SPEC's success. I want to thank Rod Skinner for his SPECtacular contributions in keeping our books. I am sad to see him retire from his position of treasurer.

I would also like to take this opportunity to invite all members to attend the annual meeting hosted by SUN in sunny California. If you can't make it, please send your ballot for the election of SPEC officers. Plus, I want to thank all SPEC members and their companies for the support of SPEC.

See y'all next year.

Kaivalya M. Dixit

Copyright (c) 1994 Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation