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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."
But desktops can deliver a few things that mobiles can't....like not burning your laptop...and the best bang for the buck performance as well as upgradability...though mini-agp and soon to be mini-pcie (?) will help notebooks with some of that.
In these days, there are public computers just about everywhere you turn. Public libraries, schools, internet cafes, I've even seen some coffee shops which have a few usable desktops. Not to mention that almost all people have their own PC.
I don't think portability should be a huge concern. Personally, I wouldn't even consider buying a laptop until they are guaranteed a much longer battery life. 2 or 3 hours max while playing something like WoW? No thank you!
High Speed Wireless Networking becoming widely available. Why wouldn't a company want to give their users laptops, while there is an extra costs of the laptop and major IT Pain in the butts, with viruses, and creating proper security parameters. But besides that why not, if you can give your employee a laptop and have them work while they are sick at home, or allow them to telecommute, thus you can save on electricity and maintenance costs. Or just relocate without having to change your infrastructure.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
The mighty desktop has been humbled by user demand for the one thing it can't deliver -- mobility.
Persoanlly I don't move around my 5 square foot cube enough to necessitate a laptop, maybe when I'm OUT of the workplace...
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People may like having cell phones/blackberries/access to terminals in libraries/etc... but at the end of the day they head back to their desktop.
Do you really want to lug a computer with you everywhere? Is it really that important to get your bosses email while you are at a party with 8 drinks in you? Or do you just not drink in case your boss sends you an email. Don't be a surf, throw all those shackles away and buy guns and booze instead.
This is my sig.
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As was mentioned in the article, laptops can be difficult to use for a full 8 hour day. The keyboard is all wrong, and the screen is always too low. Docking stations take care of that problem (expensive!), but that still doesn't solve a company-wide problem of laptop support. For example, laptops introduce a problem with keeping all files on a shared server (though folder caching can help somewhat), and laptops are prone to breakage which both increases costs and may result in lost data.
One of the more interesting ideas in recent years has been the Sun Ray Station. Tying into the previous article, the idea is that each employee is given a secure SmartCard that contains both his secret login key as well as information on how to make the Ray Station connect with the server. The advantage this has over traditional thin clients is that the user is allowed to roam to any available computer and simply "plug in". As soon as the card is inserted, your desktop is brought up EXACTLY where you left it!
This technology gets even more exciting when you realize that it can be used from remote locations. i.e. If I have a Ray Station at home (quite fesible given their cost), I can simply insert my card into my home station. The station looks at the info on the card, finds the remote server, and logs me in. Zero configuration, instant satisfaction.
Of course, the idea of Ray Stations doesn't help if you need to work from a coffee shop, hotel, or on the plane. (Many planes are adding wireless data points.) For those situations, Tadpole has developed a laptop-like product known as the Comet. It's a complete portable unit, with a large screen, wifi, and exceedingly long battery life. (Up to 8 hours!) Simply plug your card into the laptop when you're near a Wifi point, and BAM, you've got access to your desktop!
Sadly, the Sun Ray Station concept still leaves you high and dry in many different situations. (e.g. On the bus or train.) But the concept is there, and further research and development by Sun combined with more and more Wifi points popping up may very well lead to the perfect solution that both centralizes your data yet gives employees the mobility they need.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
The desktop is dead...
You can have mine and my dual 20.1" LCDs when you pry them from my cold dead fingers. That and when I can mix and match parts (i.e. upgrade) a notebook to meet my needs.
Offices aren't just trying to get more people working more hours at the office. The push for the Centrino platform by Intel has probably started to convince employees and employers that the life of a worker exists solely to the company.
Give them a laptop and they shal work at home in the off hours, or even on vacation.
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.
I have nothing to hide. So, why are you spying on me?
I kind of disagree with the mobility argument in the FA. Once you're done unplugging the power, mouse keyboard, speakers and any other peripherals, you may have just copied your work to a network directory so you can just access it somewhere else (you don't even have to lug the laptop with you). Also, I'd like to know how much 3d and autocad work was done on a laptop. What it comes down to, is that most of the downsides that were mentioned about pc's are not that hard to overcome and there are only a few situations where laptops are really that much of a necessity.
I've heard it all before. I'm sure I'll continue hearing it for quite some time.
:)
Do we really need to hear about it from every semi-random schmuck with a blog, though? Consoles are killing the gaming pc and laptops are killing the home pc. And we'll hear about it again next year. And the year after that. And the year after that.
I guess I just can't see a family giving up a non-mobile, non-delicate system the entire family can use (from 4 years old and onward) to something that will invariably find itself cartwheeling down a flight of steps because little susie and little billy weren't careful enough. Or letting their teenage son take the home laptop into his bedroom to "do homework" late at night *cough*.
I could see it being something the adults would be interested in - but as a replacement of the home PC? That's incredibly hard to believe - no matter how many times I hear it.
You are free, of course, to test the strength of that statement by duping this article tomorrow. I'm sure it'd give everyone something to bitch about
Really, though. Call me whenever there are more laptops in homes than PCs. Call me when owning a PC becomes a niche market. Then you can tell me all about it. Until then, let's simmer the conjecture down a bit, shall we? The first time, not so bad, the second time, meh, the third time...starting to get annoying, and now, the 82nd time... well... yeah.
Why? Because I leave the desktop at work at the end of the day. I have a personal laptop I can use if I absolutely need to check e-mail, but without a company laptop I don't have the software or VPN connection to do any sort of real work. It is one way to enforce a bit of life balance on myself--something that slips away easily if I know I can "just finish that up at home in front of the TV."
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
This reminds me of the time some years ago when "the death of the PC" was imminent. Well, there was a lot of hand-wringing over it, but it doesn't look like that came true.
On what grounds to they predict this one besides the mantra that the network is the computer and you will be doing all of your surfing through a tiny phone, when a lot of people tell me they just want a phone to be a phone, not a magic wand with worse sound quality than a turn of the previous-century aliminum drum?
My wife uses a small 12" powerbook attached to a large 22" cinema display for a good combo of mobile usability and desktop usability. The DVI port on that laptop means she's not cramped by the 12" screen most of the time. And the 12" size/ 4.5 lb weight makes for better portability.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
I can increase my hand-eye coordination the old fashion way, with porno magazines... I don't need a portable computer.
This topic has been coming up since the advent of the mobile computer. There are definitive reasons, both business and technological, for using either a desktop or a laptop.
Things to consider:
Is the user mobile often enough to warrant the cost and risks?
Is the user likely to damage, lose, or steal it?
Is the user likely to lose, damage, or sell company information?
People who work in call centers are not likely to warrant the cost and risk of a laptop. At least not yet. 'Green' PCs and monitors mean that laptops don't save that much energy, and risk of theft or damage is higher when using laptops for non-mobile users. Additionally, upgrades and change out programs are much more expensive.
Using laptops and mobile devices increases the risks: financial, corporate IP theft or sale, information loss, productivity loss, risk of loss of functionality when the IT department isn't there to support it, and many other things.
What I basically feel is that this article, while posing some good points, is just a troll dressed in sheep's clothing. Hardware choices make sense in view of, and in combination with the domain of their use. If that domain is airplanes and hotel rooms, definitely a laptop. If that domain is strictly a cubicle - no laptop. If the domain is mixed, business reasoning comes into play. For personal use, style has its say in that choice too.
A poor analogy is that a 4wheel drive is good to have when you are fjording rivers. But if you are just commuting to work then a Hummer is a bad idea... no matter what size bear you are.
Wow, so the article points out that now computers can be mobile... not a lot to see here, move along.
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While the growth of wifi is an important factor, I think the original article missed another contributing factor: changes in peripherals. Once upon a time, apart from printers, most peripherals -- scanners, modems, etc -- required an expansion card of some sort, and the classic, bus mounted, cards for desktops were cheap and universal. Peripherals for laptops often had premium pricing, and in any case, laptops only offered a few card slots or serial/parallel ports. If you cared about expandability, or upgradability, desktops were the way to go.
Nowadays, between USB and Firewire, a laptop is on a level playing field as far as peripherals are concerned, especially because many devices double as hubs, reliving pressure on laptop real estate. Plus, expensive docking stations are less of an issue -- for example, I use a laptop as my primary machine, but that would a pain for writing things of any length on a routine basis, so at work I just plug a regular flatscreen and a USB keyboard and mouse (the mouse actually plugs into the keyboard) and go.
In any case the peripherals most people use most often -- wireless and wired network interfaces -- tend to be built right in these days. And as for upgradability: as the article points out most people have more than enough juice in their laptops to do what they need to do.
"Just once, I'd like to meet an alien menace that wasn't immune to bullets." -- The Brigadier, Dr. Who
A laptop maxes out at 15 pounds for last generation's biggest and fattest. Ever been a parent with an infant over 2 months old? They're far heavier and they squirm. And they like to be held. A LOT. :D
That off-topic point aside, I would suggest you never be wired into your job when you're out with your laptop off hours. Also, I use my laptop to jot down ideas when I'm writing, and it also carries my music and quite a few anime movies. I could of course use a really expensive and high-end PDA to do this too, but I can more readily install RedHat on my laptop than my PDA. Being that my laptop is not a gaming machine it provides me with a fairly distraction-free environment to write my stories, do homework, etc.
That being said, I'd be mad pissed if desktops went away. I use a workstation styled desktop machine at home to play games, especially real time simulators (warcraft, starcraft, etc) that no console can possibly work well with (try moving a dozen individual units around different places with any level of agility with a PS2 / Xbox controller... please, do!). My desktop machine also serves as a highly agile archive system with 2 DVD burners and several terabytes of firewire HD space online. I can back up stuff off my laptop to my desktop machine and so on.
To me, the relationship between the laptop and the desktop is my laptop is my starship and my desktop is my starbase. I would not desire a computer market in which the former or the latter has been deprecated.
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Took me about half an hour to drive to the store and back, and about five minutes to install the harddrive (of which I spent about three minutes with plugging and unplugging my world's favorite fire hazard, aka all the wires behind my desk).
That's it. Easy-peasy-Japanesy. Sure you can upgrade the your laptop's problem (usually without opening the case) and switch out your old harddrive but you can't just add a new one, and chances are you'll end up paying a pretty penny for your 2.5" laptop HDD.
My point? There's a place for laptops and there's a place for desktops. There is a growing number of people who can do without a desktop computer, yeah, but the vast majority have both, a laptop and a desktop machine.
A laptop is never going to replace my desktop computer.
And JUST when Linux was going to be ready for the desktop!
"Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under." - H.L. Mencken
You young 'uns and your fancy schmancy "mobile computers". In my day, we didn't have these flimsy little "laptops". No sirreee, none of these tiny little plastic computers for us.
We lugged them heavy duty 100% cast iron Sun workstations in to work every morning and carried them home on our backs when the day was done.
Yes sir. We built character lugging our Sun workstations about and balancing them on our laps. To say nothing of more resilient balls.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
I think he's responding more to two very recognizable trends and packaged it as "the death of the workstation":
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1. The growing laptop unit sales versus the average slow-growth workstation unit sales.
2. The decline in wealth and political influence of the American middle-class. (using mode not mean or median, see asia times for some IMF reporting http://atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/EH16Dj01.
3. There are more companies where it's perfectly okay to treat employees like the developers at EA widely reported on some months ago. So squeeze all potential productivity out of a worker, because the computers and applications and resources we have been so generous in providing are enough to do the job.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Laptops are killing desktops for knowledge workers for one reason; keeping your data with you wherever you are. Ten or more years ago you'd find people went to work, worked, then went home again. However, it's not the laptop per se that's killed off the desktop, it's peripheral advances like wireless technology, increased mobile bandwidth and minaturisation that have done this. Wireless is without a doubt the number one reason why laptops boomed massively in the last 3 or so years.
Mobile technology also means a mobile workforce. I currently deal with around 250+ users across three locations. A lot of the supplemental departments (finance, HR, operations) move between sites and visit clients, and it's easier for them to take their whole work environment with them than mess about with software licenses, having redundant desktops lying dormant for 50% of the time etc. etc.
Granted, it's great from their point of view, but laptops are a much bigger concern for IT departments like ours, especially when they get lugged home, used on broadband conections or used on a VPN connection. They're also a pain to keep updated as users tend to move around more - maybe even connect to client networks that don't have the same level of security. In the long run though, we'd rather supply them with a manageable device like a laptop rather than have them mess around with assorted PDAs and smartphones. laptops also have a more tangible value associated with them, so in 99% of cases you don't get silly accidents.
That said, the laptop may be killing off the humble desktop, but it will never kill off the workstation. For other departments - CGI, storyboard, development, edit etc. - a laptop simply would never cut it. Lots of nearline storage (TB+), colour-matched dual monitors, renderfarms and gigs of RAM are things I'd never want to lug around in a laptop. I know some people will say it can be done, but I would hate to ever consider cutting broadcast quality video and audio on a laptop. It's also important to note that these people don't need to take their data with them. They aren't 'knowledge workers' like the others, but employed to utilise their skills on the material in situ.
That said, laptops still have a long way to go before they approach the reliability of a desktop - I think we get a fourfold increase in failures on laptops generally.
While the moderation of this comment is technically correct, it indicates the need for a new rating of "-1 Too Informative".
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
1.) Leave work at work.
2.) The last thing you should do when you get home is hop onto your personal computer, but that's what many of us do. We want to do email/IM/blog but it's the last thing we should be doing.
3.) Find hobbies that have nothing to do with technology. Ride bikes, run, lift weights, camp, geocache, buy a gun, get a significant other if you don't have one, or if you do spend more time with them.
4.) Most of all just stay well-rounded. In all aspects of your life. Keep a balance (no I'm not religious but yes this is similar to some Ancient Eastern philosophies/religions).
If you "get" pointers add me as a friend (116)!
With the decline of the desktop, Apple has decided to release a new system called the iBook Nano. It has 8GB of flash memory 1 GB of SDRAM, wireless connectivity, and no hard-disk, CD or DVD drive at all. It runs a special version of Tiger that mounts iDrive storage over the web with it's included .mac account, where you can access Apple's software library for a small monthly fee. Also supported is the Mac mini as a wireless server for your software and music storage needs.
"Scientists don't change their minds, they just die." -- Max Planck
My office (well, cubicle) is set up the same way. The laptop goes onto a docking station attached to a couple largish LCD monitors. The laptop has a browser, Java, text editor and most importantly, an SSH client. In other words, the laptop is just a glorified terminal since the real work goes on in the servers and a fixed desktop machine. I access home email via a web page. Work email is either replicated or accessed via a webpage or local client.
At home I have multiple machines running different applications that are accessed either via X-over-SSH or VNC. At 100Mbit, remote applications appear to be running locally and are even accessed via the same desktop menu using VNC passwd files. Having the laptop is really convenient because I can roam the house and do anything I need, including watch video.
I run dual 20's as well.
The desktop has its place. The notebook has its place.
The people I work with all want the superchief notebooks with 17" screens. I want the lightest, smallest one I can get. If I have to use a notebook in a meeting, fine. But when I get back, I want usable desktop space. No missing emails because it was under the document I'm writing. Video conferencing on one screen while working on the other.
No other way.
My mom says I'm cool.
My first hand experience...
my pc at work SUCKS, but my connection doesn't (dsl at work, comcast cable at home)
I use windows remote desktop, (mstc.exe) and pull up my desktop from home pc (and due to using the termserv.dll hack) while my wife uses the same pc at the same time for whatever. Including CPU sucking games... when I get home, I log in, and my desktop is '''' exactly the same as I left it at work ''''! cursor blinking in the same spot etc,. if I go out to my shed, I can pull it up on my old windows ME laptop and keep working there (and smoke!) over wifi.. except for video, I can do everything I can do without being there...
I don't have firsthand experience with, but thought 'roving desktops' for XP & with windows server was basically the same thing-- for multiple users....
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
At the place where I work (insurance company), they just replaced my trusty workstation (1.6gHz P4 desktop) with a Toshiba M3 laptop. From time to time I have to head out on the road, so it's nice to have a laptop. Also, I occasionally give PowerPoint presentations, so I can just remove my laptop from the docking station and set it up in the conference room, rather than requisitioning equipment from IS for the meeting. At work I use Access, Excel, Word, Outlook, Visio, Business Objects, Oracle, and a few custom written applications, so I don't need a lot of horsepower in my computer (although the Toshiba is fairly decent). The VAST majority of people who use computers in their jobs do not need the latest and greatest hardware to accomplish their tasks. Most people could probably get by using Pentium IIs or IIIs. On the point of employers issuing laptops in an effort to squeeze out extra work hours from their employees, that is a valid concern. In my own situation, my manager is super cool and doesn't expect me to slave away on my own personal time. There are times when I'll put in overtime or do some work from home, but it's complete optional and well-rewarded. I'm looking forward to the day when I don't need to leave the apartment to do my job. A company issued laptop and a WiMax connection would be very cool. No dress code, no commute, no putting up with the co-workers that I despise.
I'm ready to lose the desktop. Basically, security patching is driving me nuts. Yes, even on my Linux systems! Backup sucks too. I'm ready to have a diskless thin client network connected into an efficient virtual blade world with big RAIDed SANs/NASes backed up on tape/DVD/etc with a UPS, one that SOMEONE ELSE RUNS. Why should I have to install blogging and other web content management software on my server? Seriously, root is just no fun any more.
Huh? Funny, I thought that this was exactly what Terminal Services and/or Remote Desktop achieved?
For those who are uniformed: Terminal Services
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
You obviously haven't seen my awesome 6.8GHz laptop with 1 Terabyte of RAM. Eats those dual Xeons for lunch!
The 56" widescreen is a bit difficult to fold, or use outside on a windy day, though... still, it's worth it to be mobile!
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Desktops were useful when no one understood computers, and were familiar with info work only in forms like desks, file cabinets, folders, documents. Now everyone understands computers, and are held back by the ill-fitting desktop metaphor. What we need are dashboards, like the ones Americans invented for cars. Essential info for navigating infospace, available at a glance, supporting the main action of getting where we're going. Get the machine out of the way, except to cushion the road.
--
make install -not war