The Decline Of The Desktop

Lam1969 writes "Robert Mitchell of Computerworld has written an article about the decline of the desktop in the workplace. He also notes in his blog: 'This theme of 'squeezing' more hours out of workers came up a few times as this story came together. Using technology to increase productivity is a good thing, but in some cases productivity wasn't increasing -- employees were simply expected to work more hours.'" From the article: "After almost a quarter of a century as the personal computing device of choice for business, the desktop PC is sliding off its pedestal. It has withstood assaults by technologies such as the Windows terminal, the Web and the network PC, but the mighty desktop has been humbled by user demand for the one thing it can't deliver -- mobility."

Comments

Tell me about the death of Computing

[denissmith]

For certain applications ( which he alludes to in TFA ) - Graphics, visualization, scientific computing, etc. the desktop is still essential. But the reason isn't that it sits on a desk, or is tethered to the wall, its because you need faster processing power, faster hard drives and much, much bigger screen real estate. I would love to move to a laptop, but the small screen and slow hard drive make large scale image editing ( a small file is 120MB, a big file is 1.6GB) impossible. Plus heat. These things run hat for constant use. What's changed is that more users are able to find a better fit with the computing power that they actually need ( part time use, web surfing, email and word processing, and number crunching in the accountiing, not scientific data, sense.) This isn't so much the end of the desktop as the rise of something new. In a few years ( Google willing) we'll be reading stories of the demise of the laptop, as web based filesystems and ubiquitous broadband wireless allow cheap cell phone processing to.... Whatever. The fact is that computing is becoming available everywhere and all the time and that means it is becoming invisible. It will be built into the fabric of everything. It won't be separate anymore.

Re:Sun Ray

[AKAImBatman]

I don't want to plug into "any available computer".

Just because you can, doesn't mean you have to. I personally have always envisioned each employee having his "own" thin client, and only replacing it as necessary. (I used to support a Citrix Winframe installation, so the concept is quite familiar to me.) What I loved about the Sun concept though, was that I wouldn't have to drag my boss or cow-orker into my office to show them the "Cool work-related thing of the week." Instead, I can simply take the card with me to my boss's office. When I get there, I temporarily remove his card and plug mine in. That way we can discuss whatever the issue is, then I can put his card back in and he'll be exactly where he was before I left.

I imagine this would work particularly well in (non-software) engineering diciplines, where the ability to quickly move the model on your screen around the work area is worth its weight in gold.