Think parallel, save your product

I always wonder why we all speak about performance. We uses many jargons like performance, optimization, throughput, scalability, parallel thinking, hybrid computing, threads, locks, semaphores, synchronization, penalty, data parallelism, instruction parallelism and many more.

Why we are aiming on performance? What happened to the software industry in a very short span? Instead of just making new and new software why everyone thinks about increasing the performance of the existing ones?

What is the motivation?

Motivation number 1... The customer satisfaction...

I never want to know how complex the algorithm is, I want to get it done in slice of a second...
I paid $10000 for your product and now there are 100 other products which takes a second to do what you gets done in a day...You cheated me?
My system is having a quad core processor and you takes 100 seconds to get things done. When I look the CPU usage it is just 25%, what are you doing inside your program? Why did i buy a quad core machine spending all my money?

Motivation number 2... A stitch in time saves nine...

What if your software takes an hour to detect the spread blood inside brain? The patient may die before you detect the problem.
What if it takes an hour to diagnose your vehicles electrical problem? Don't you have tight schedule?

Motivation number 3... There is no point in watering a dead plant...
What is the use if you detect a tsunami after it has hit the shores?
What is the use if you predict tomorrows weather 2 days later?
What are you going to achieve if you detect a fire in a chamber and the alarm gets triggered 10 seconds late?

I conclude it like this.
So it is sure that time matters. If your competitor do a thing much faster than you what happens? The answer is clear. You can’t compete anymore.