Columnists’ Corner: Increasing processor commoditization will be an important story in 2006, Tom Yager writes. “They should be as cheap as light bulbs. Well, designer store light bulbs.” In particular, Dell will make some adjustments. “In hardware, Dell is looking forward to commoditization in what I believe will be the fastest growing segment of system sales starting in about 2008: large clusters.”Best of the Blogs: Check out Linus Torvalds in Matt Assays’s Open Resource, as Torvalds comments on source code, developer craziness, and the makings of successful projects.Micahel Baum, in IT Troubleshooter, says he is at Interop this week in New York at a special NOC called InteropNET, where 14 vendors are allocating best of breed technologies to run Internet access at the show. The growing importance of SOAs was a major story in 2005, and has presented opportunities for networking companies like Cisco Systems, says Greg Nawrocki, in Grid Meter. “Today’s convergence of virtualization, loosely-coupled services and dynamic provisioning capabilities could accelerate the network’s role from mere transport of IP packets — to central nervous system for the IT infrastructure,” he writes. Quoteworthy: New rules by the European Union that telecoms and ISPs be required to retain customer data for up to two years, “are a “green light for mass surveillance, fishing expeditions and profiling,” said U.K. Liberal Democrat M.E.P. Sarah Ludford. Technology Industry