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Sun President Says PCs Are Relics
christchurch map writes "Jonathan Schwartz, president of server and software maker Sun Microsystems, said that the personal computer is increasingly becoming a relic. Instead, what has become important are Web services on the Internet and the majority of the world will first experience the Internet through their mobile phones." From the article: "Schwartz points to the increasing wealth and power of companies, like eBay, Google, Yahoo and Amazon.com, that profit from free services available over the network. Among his audience, many more people said they'd rather have access to Internet services than their desktop computing applications. And Microsoft--the company with the biggest financial stake in the PC software business--has struggled to cope with the arrival of Web services."
Honestly, this is the simply wishful thinking (bordering on delusion) under the guise of expert analysis.
This is even less true now than it was ten years ago.
A better question will be who will buy Sun.. I'm guessing Dell.
This sounds mysteriously like predictions from 10 years ago, and 10 years before that, and 10 years before that. I don't think Sun was the one to make that prediction the first time, but they sure were making it 10 years ago. So far it just seems to keep getting less and less true. The network is not the computer. The network is the input. The computer is the computer.
There are quite a few problems with the remote-PC option. For one, latency is a killer which we can only overcome by client-side predictions, so most UI will be intollerably unresponsive without enough power to run things locally.
For another, just because the computer is physically remote doesn't mean the user doesn't have to administer it. It's still their 'GoToMy' PC. They can still screw it up, unless you're not going to let them install applications, at which point it becomes a bit useless as a computer. If users want autoupdating, why not just write software that autoupdates?
Third, we all know that network black boxes in this country come as tied to specific services. And we know that technology dongles like this fail.
Fourth, while some network apps have taken off, like webmail, others have failed miserably. Browser-based text editors come to mind. Some things you just want local.
And Fifth, with computers so cheap, why network? Where is the huge performance or convienience increase that would convince everyone to switch?
Latency basically kills the possibility of playing games over a black box even with high-speed broadband. You would need to do the kind of expensive client-side predictions currently in use to keep the game playable, at which point you would by definition have a client capable of playing the game.
But ultimately I think the basic problem is that people want to own their things. They don't usually want to lease their telephones, or rent their software by the year. When I buy a computer, I want that feeling of "well, i've got that computer problem solved." I want my private data on a local disk. I want to be able to kick something. I just don't see the compelling argument that would alter computing from the current independent model to a client-server model.
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