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The Fall of Fibre Channel: Page 3 of 16

And, my! How the villagers laughed. Suffice it to say that my analysis was
unpopular with vendors, pundits, and other journalists – most of whom at
that time were hailing ATM as the Second Coming.

Whatever… It took a decade, but both the ANSI boffins and I were eventually
proved right, which is quite satisfying if you’re the sort of “told you so”

person who takes satisfaction in that sort of thing (and I know I am).

But now things are about to change, and Fibre Channel’s fortunes are set to
take a nasty turn for the worst. How do I know? It’s all about history – and
learning from its lessons.

Flashback time

As a journalist I’ve written about a bunch of technology
rumbles over the years: shared media networks versus switched networks,
100Base-T versus 100VG-AnyLAN, ATM versus IP, Netware versus NT (not much of a fight, that one).