"A report suggesting software licensing costs could increase 50 percent by 2006 shouldn't be viewed as doctrine etched in stone, according to IBM Corp. spokesman Ari Fishkind.
"'The META Group consultancy disagrees with Gartner's finding,' said Fishkind, whose company is headquartered in Armonk, N.Y. 'Kevin McIsaac, META Group's research director for Asia-Pacific, contends that software costs will grow at just about 10 percent per annum. Regarding multi-core processors, Kevin Krewell, editor-in-chief of the Microprocessor Report newsletter and an analyst at In-Stat/MDR, says that dual-core machines are as much as 80 percent faster and therefore add greater value to justify per-processor pricing...'"
