The tranisition to Solid state drives moves forward even with some concerns being raised

Implications: 1.  Solid State drives are the future (not too distant) 2.  Reports of problems grab headlines, but rarely stop a trend

Analysis: The new Ipod  touch now has a 32 Gig flash drive, the new iPhone has a 16 gig flash drive and the new Dell laptops can come with a 64 Gig flash drive.  Just for fun, I checked out my laptop drive and found out I only had a 32 gig drive (computer is a couple of years old).  This is amazing in that by next Christmas probably even my phone will have more solid state memory that my current laptop hard drive.

So, why does this matter?  If you take out the battery and the hard drive from your laptop, you will find that your laptop is a lot lighter.  Given the fact that solid state drives take less power, maybe we will finally see the battery life we have all wanted from our laptops.  I would love for my laptop to work like my phone.  I can use it all day and charge it at night.  How portable is your laptop if you really have to have it plugged in for half of the day?  With solid state drives we may have laptops we can carry that truly do let us travel freely.

I also worked at a company that was a supplier to Dell.  Dell has much higher quality standard that they impose on their suppliers.  I had to set up a separate version of the Shop floor control system to meet Dell's higher pass rates.  In fact the company had a separate testing function to support the dell versions of the product.  Based on my experience, Dell is likely to be accurate in their assessment of the drive failures. 

My daughters Ipod classic has a hard drive that has failed twice in the same time that my Ipod nano (with flash) has been working just fine.  I think that the move to solid state drives will allow laptops life to be extended for more than four years of useful life.  Let's face it, we really do not need a processor faster than 2ghz for most corporate applications.  As a CIO, the extra cost will be offset by the extra year of use and the higher reliability.  We are already seeing desktops that have a useful life beyond four years and solid state drives have the potential to create the same life for laptops.

I checked online and noticed that I could buy a 8Gig replacement drive for $200.  My guess is that by Christmas 2008, that $200 will buy you a 32Gig drive.  My guess is also that by 2009 or 2010, notebooks will be shipping a large percentage of solid state drives.

This change is inevitable because laptop manufacturers will have to compete more and more with PDA's to become the end user's computing device of choice.  I already know a lot of people who carry their blackberries around and do not take a laptop with them.  I feel the trend this year and next will be to make the laptops have more and more of the PDA features concerning battery life.  And solid state drives and better LCD panels will make the most difference in that future.