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Gates Claims PC Era Not Over Yet
An anonymous reader writes "Bill Gates has collaborated to pen a response to the Wall Street Journal's recent claim that we are at the end of the PC era. From the article: 'The reality is a little different. The truth is that the model which has fueled the incredible popularity and affordability of the PC will continue to drive innovation and choice in the burgeoning area of personal devices such as cell phones, digital players and mobile PCs. As such, the PC is becoming more important and popular as a key enabler for these new digital scenarios in every corner of the world, from Indianapolis to Istanbul. If anything, it is, to paraphrase Churchill, perhaps the end of the beginning: the end of the first phase in the life of a young and evolving technology that is just now becoming as ubiquitous as the TV or the automobile.'"
hotels aren't going to put their front desk software on a phone, businesses aren't going to hire people to work on pda's.
So a guy who makes his living selling a product is telling people that the product is something worth buying.
I would have never expected such a thing.
Hold on, we REALLY might come out with Vista sometime in the next 5 years.
I do happen to agree with him, the PC isnt' going anywhere. Cell phones are overhyped, they are just too limited. But he does have an OBVIOUS bias and motivation.
-- Having a Creationist Museum is like having an Atheist place of worship
Funny.
I agree with his assessment that this is a new beginning in ubiquity.
Unfortunately, the comparison is a buzzkill. I have never really seen automobiles nor televisions as "Ubiquitous". This leads me to doubt Gates' actual understanding of the ramifications (an unleashed possibility) of this phenomenon. This will ultimately be the downfall of his "Windows everywhere" vision.
The miniaturization is effectively going to put the PC in your pocket [figuratively]. Moreover, rather than having a "PC at home" I see us having connected devices that send and receive information from a remote server (or servers), and provide us with the mobility without sacrificing the connectivity.
Oh yeah: First post.
PC will take lot of time ... but what about the things going around. He should be worried about all those Mini-ITX, Nano-ITX that are coming around. Again another way to look around ... "Apple sells as many or more songs than the many stores that use Microsoft software." ...
So to paraphrase Churchill, we only have about 5 more years left of fighting Microsoft [assuming they are the Nazis]?
OK I've just compared Microsoft to murderers. The debate is over, we all lose.
Oh You POS
Until other devices can provide an easy way to type a paper, type an email, view complicated websites, look at your digital pictures, edit a picture, write shell scripts or view large amounts of data conveniently on other platforms, we will not see the death of the desktop. Televisions, PDAs and cell phones lack the resolution to view many useful websites ( /. looks horrible on my palm).
What will come next (imo) is the comoditization of the software and the rise of the service model. The service model will work on all your devices including the desktop. What will make money for companies is how well their service integrates with the multitude of devices out there. Apple is using the Verizon approach of controlling the device and the hardware. This means people are locked in to their service and when they decide to pull features on their new devices, there is no out. If music you purchased on the iTunes music store will only play on an iPod, you have reason to keep it. What happens when mp3 files no longer play on the next gen iPod (which u will need to play your online purchases)... many people will lose a large portion of their music library.
MS here is like the GSM companies. They will provide the service; you just need to get a compatible device which can have whatever features they put in. As w/ the ability to install MS-DOS on PC clones, this is a great business model that will benefit the consumer in the long run as it gives more options (even if the current gen of iTunes+iPod is better).
* now I only was able to read the 2nd article (about apple's business model) becau se the 1st required me to log in... I will wait until someone posts the content of the first to see how off topic I am
When all else fails, try.
If we're talking about work and email and such - sure, the PC isn't going anywhere.
But I was asking My Lovely Wife (MLW) if she wanted me to buy her a copy of Sodoku for her iBook, since she's always using my DS to play "Brain Age" for the training and Sodoku. (Which leaves me unable to play my new "Super Mario Brothers" right now.)
She shook her head. "No, because on this, I can write down the answers, while with my laptop I'd have to enter it in, and it would get annoying."
I think there's something here. Look at console game sales opposed to PC game sales - sure, PC game sales aren't going away, but consoles are clearly dominating. Plug in to TV, and done. Look at the Wii - in a lot of ways, it's really emulating the gaming of the PC only in a true console mode (point and aim, swing and hit the ball - simple as can be).
The PC isn't going away - but I don't think it's the big deal it once was for all things computer. It's still important, but not for "all things".
Of course, that's just my opinion - it could be wrong. Now, if I can just get that DS away from her....
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When a robber baron speaks, the media has to treat it like gospel. Especially on Slashdot. ;)
Reason: You can type more than that for your comment.
Not if Netcraft says you're dead.
While the housing market seems to be cooling, the era of living in houses is not coming to an end. I believe it was Dr. Obvio...No, Captain Obvious who was quoted. It's just that kind of wisdom that makes you a billionaire.
Oops, mis-read. I thought it was Gates who was proclaiming the PC dead. I see it's the WSJ who did. Sorry! Should RTFS more closely.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
the PC is becoming more important and popular as a key enabler for these new digital scenarios in every corner of the world,
Very true, but not the Windows PC.
Vista may well mark the end of the Windows era.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
And why not? Hell, I'm still running under 640k and I don't think that the Internet thing will ever catch on.
But why should we trust the predictions from a guy, with more money than god, who can't even get his own company to produce product on schedule?
Yep, slamming Bill is often a passtime, but I have to admit, he's making this one easy... so easy, its not even fun really. If Bill or MS tells me that the sky is falling, I logically realize that we have 2-3 more years before it begins to fall, and there will be several false alerts before it actually does fall.
Wow, just wow
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these new digital scenarios in every corner of the world, from Indianapolis to Istanbul
;)
As usual, the USA is the center of a world, and those exotic other places are in the corners. Sir William Gates should be awakened to the realization that as an approximately spherical object, our planet does not have corners!
Eh, but don't get me wrong, I'm used to it. After all in the room analogy, the USA must be the Windows (TM) of the world, and that's a lot worse than being in a corner
For example, let's look at internet radio. First off you played it on your PC, then came a range of products that give you remote playing of streams via a PC - but still needed a PC; now a Nokia 770, Palm TX or similar or even a dedicated internet radio player can play internet radio without a PC in the loop.
I need a PC to download stuff from the internet onto an ipod. If the ipod got smart enough (which it probably will soon, or it will lose out to competing products), I'll be able to download podcasts etc directly from a Wifi connection with no PC involved.
As a hub, the PC will surely die just like the need for a ethernet switch falls off as Wifi takes over. Indeed, we're already seeing places where ADSL modem/router with integrated Wifi AP results in completely cable-free installations.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
So does that mean 5 years ago's speech about embedded everything under the sun was all a pack of hoo-ey...? Methinks if Gates is on it then it's wrong.
Troll? Come on, guys, you know this fellow was making a joke, albeit at our Microsoft-hating expense... wait... maybe you don't. I think that's actually scaring me. /shiver
Seriously, though. "overrated", yes. "troll", no, unless you think people are actually that easy to bait. Use the mod system to some approximaiton of correctly, please.
...it's really a sad day for America when we require a goddamn ACT OF CONGRESS to make our DVD players work properly. ~
Well, he would say that, wouldn't he?
The PC era can be declared over, if and when:
1. Windows Vista - Service Pack 2 is released.
2. Microsoft releases a complete OS under "GPL 3.0 or later".
3. Software patents are declared illegal in the US.
4. Chinese firm releases complete PC - hardware and software, fully developed and built in-house - at under $100.
5. SCO defeats IBM and buys RedHat.
6. nVidia releases GPL drivers.
7. Symantec withdraws from security market, declaring Vista is 'unbreakable'.
8. DRM is declared illegal, DMCA revoked, and the RIAA dissolved.
9. Hurd 1.0 is available for download.
10. No more chairs in the Chair-Man's Office at Redmond.
-
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
stating the obvious?
It's pretty obvious that, as you say/repeat, phones and computers are not good matches for replacing computers.
Seems there article writer stood to benefit from gates' co-authoring, and gates gets to put his name against something in wide print...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
what Gates thinks anymore.
I can't believe that this is moded higher than a 0 Flamebait! MODS, the parent is factually incorrect.
You can't handle the truth.
The idea about making the computer the hub for digital cameras or digital music didn't originate with Apple. Micorosoft used the concept when introducing Windows Me.
Take a look at CNN Tech from September 2000, where the representative from Microsoft states that "Microsoft wants to make the PC act as a hub for other kinds of computing activities".
SUN's old saw "The Network is the Computer" is already supplanting the notion of a "desktop." The desktop is scarcely the "hub" even now. It's just a node.
of the PC every six months or so. It seems to have started with the idea of "dumb" terminals in the 90's - which would lead us back to servers (mainframes) which the PC got us away from in some part in the first place. From then on, that same idea has been resurrected time and again for some reason (and hidden agenda).
Unless they annouce what will take it's place (typing on a PDA, playing games on a cellphone? I don't think so) - I'll just take the predictions as more mindless punditry and don't even need Billy to tell me such.
Looking through Microsoft glasses is like trying to look through a stained glass window. The colors are pretty, but you can't make out anything clearly on the other side. The rise of the networked PC was supposed to be the end of the mainframe, but we are seeing a resurgence there. Big bad IBM isn't so bad anymore. The multimedia PC miracle that was being pushed to ignorant consumers buying 486SX PC's only started achieving its promise almost decade later. The Internet _is_ a big thing. .Net is not multiplatform for any of Microsoft's doing. Linux is not a toy OS. OSS is not a cancer. Java is not dead. NT wasn't bullet proof. XP wasn't secure. Tablet PC's aren't everywhere. And people weren't stupid enough to fall for Hailstorm.
To their credit, they've done a lot of stuff, but predictions is not something I think they do well.
Except that the "co-author" is the CEO of Intel.
Wow, Gates is SOOOOO smart! What's his next observation going to be? That the sky is blue? That water is wet? That Slashdot is full of sarcastic idiots like me with no life?
Of course ole Bill will have us believe the age of the PC isn't over. How else will he profit from the company he has built?
Life is rarely fair. Cherish the moments when there is a right answer.
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For once I agree with Gates. The PC is not dead yet. Of course, he had his fun back in the nineties when Microsoft would have their hench-pundits predict the death of Apple and Unix every few months. That wasn't really happening either. Just guerrilla marketing tactics.
Liberals call everyone Nazis yet they are the closest thing to it.
The only thing standing in the way is the current monopoly on ip addresses and the crappiness of the average OS. If every person could have their home computer running as a server all of this would be different. All we need is static IPs assigned to everyone with a broadband connection (not fricking www.IBLOWCHUNKS.com crap, IP addresses, yes they are in fact easier to remember and understand than PHONE NUMBERS!!!!). I cannot begin to count the number of times others who do not know what they are doing have envied my ability to serve them pictures, my own pages, whatever. When that happens, everybody will want a 2 processor dual core 4 gb ram dell box. You would think the computer companies could figure this out on their own. Oh the implications.... The really ironic bit is that Bill Gates POS operating system is the major obstical (right behind the phone companies) for this. The next really big move in computers will be a truly open internet and everyone running OS X, Linux, BSD, or Solaris. When that happens, everything will change.
I see the PC being only partially supplanted by cellphones and other mobile devices. Did tiny portable televisions supplant the living room television? No, because they're just not as nice.
Mobile phones have largely replaced landline phones for a lot of people because they're able to do almost everything better than landline phones (portability, easy address book address) at a comparable price (an extra $20 a month or so).
However, mobile phones and PDAs do not do everything better than traditional PCs. Their advantages are price, portability, and simplicity - all extremely important traits that will allow them to carve out more and more market share over time.
However, for the forseeable future (10-20 years?) PCs will be several orders of magnitudes more powerful than mobile devices when it comes to storage capacity, power, display, and input devices.
Other aspects will take even longer (25+ years?) to be bested by mobile devices due to the sheer physical limits of mobile devices - big screens and comfortable input devices. Over time, I'm sure creators mobile devices will overcome these challenges. We've all seen scifi movies where users have portable 10-megapixel displays that are the size of dimes and can be worn as an eyepiece and I'm sure bright MIT grads are working to make that a reality in some lab somewhere.
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PDA with wireless and a home server and you are done. I'd prefer a palm tx and and a dual core Mac as the home server, but that's just me.
Tired of all the isms, don't exploit people as an employer, or a government, mmmmK?
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isn't microsoft his company activly trying to consolize the pc doing the exact same thing that bill gates here is denying?
.............blah blah blabbityblah blahblah blahblah blahblah blahblablablahblablablablabla blah blah blahblah blahblah blahblablablahblablablablabla blah blah blahblah blahblah babhbahblah babababablah bababababababablah 640 k ought to be enough for anyone blahblablablahblablablablabla blah blah blahblah blahblah blahblah blahblah blahblah blahblah blah blah blabbityblah blah blah blabbityblah blah blah blabbityblah ..............
No sig.
Reminds me of reading=
email from the command=
line.=
I think that in 20 years, we will be living in a world where embedded microprocessors are inside of almost every product, and IPV6 will mean that everyday objects will have IP addresses and will be individually addressable. All those people who work ferrying information between machines will be out of work. When you really think about it, a very large number of people's jobs involve following scripts of one kind or another. That will end. The result is that each job will have to be justified by its owner as doing something truly unique.
All those unemployed people? The world will stop pretending that unemployment is a crime of laziness and it will realize that without consumers, the global economy will implode. My guess is that we will see a golden age of sorts, eventually, but there will be growing pains as the elite try to criminalize everybody to prevent the creation of a world in which everybody can eat and continue to live, even if their wage labor is no longer required.
...and that is the Windows concept of "Bringing the main frame to the desktop". In the windows concept of development the objective was to allow everyone to have their own personal mainframe. All applications run and are installed locally. The idea of a distributed computer, (as apposed to distributed computing, altogether different subject), is a totally foreign idea to windows. I can't for example, run an instance of word which displays on my screen, from another computer without bringing the entire desktop, and all of it's bells and whistles along with it.
The era of "The network is the computer" though long possible in *nix, is just now being forced upon, and in many ways leaving Windows behind. With a *nix box (and Apple runs *nix with a hobbled desktop, looks good though) you can actually have a display in location A and apps running on B C D E F and the data stored on a SAN or NAS system in location G.
IMHO over the next few years you are going to see an increase in powerful, portable, displays that access applications and data from multiple locations as if it was all held in the palm of your hand. These systems will have little if any OS or storage locale to the device. Those orgainizations still tied to the old model of immobile all in one devices, or pay by the installation software model, will slowly at first, and eventually significantly loose market share. Many will go the way of Harvard Graphics.
Already if you are outside the US you are seeing the beginning of what I'm refering to. Many so called "3rd world" Nations have little if any land line setup for telephones. But everyone has a cell. In more advanced countries outside of the US people are in large numbers giving up their home phone and just using cellular systems. Already a large chunk of the bay area is free wireless, or soon to be free (legitimate free not war driving style) San Jose the heart of the Silicon Valley will the the last to go since it's the largest city and the one with the most attention from ComCast and AT&T.
The era of the PC gone. Not really. However the era of the putty colored tower with a 2 ton monitor, is IMHO already going bye bye. As time and the advantages of mobility become something bean counters can count. Then increased interoperability will be the order of the day. No longer will just the exchange of data be enough. The sharing of the means to manipulate the data will also be required. Sooner or later it will be learned that contolling the code is a waste of time and money. Controlling the API is where it's at.
I'm sorry, I'm to tired to be witty at the moment so this message will have to do.
Article synopsis:
---
Hello,
My name is Bill Gates. I might very well watch my huge multi-billion dollar empire fade into obscurity and impotence if,
a) The PC era is over
b) You believe the PC era is over
In light of these facts, I have an announcement:
"The PC era isn't over."
You can stop holding your breath now. Carry on!
PS I'm not saying he isn't right, but come on........
No sig.
That's why there is so much effort to get everyone using Windows DRM for future media. Bill wants all your home appliances to be connected to your Windows PC, and only a Windows PC will do. In the current legal climate where we have legally enforced vendor lock-in over file formats this may be quite easy to do.
Windows is on most PCs.
People who want to sell devices that work with PCs will target Windows users.
Windows users will most likely be using the bundled media player. (ITunes is an interesting exception here, possibly a spanner in the works for Microsoft).
Bill makes it easier, even encourages, device makers to work _only_ with the proprietry Windows protocols and formats. He got his wrists slapped for this recently by the antitrust courts - too little too late of course.
It is now illegal to reverse engineer those protocols for compatibility and make competing devices.
It's a pity, as Windows and its software is not even that good. It's often been shown to be pretty poor and there's a lot more innovative stuff out there - but people have ditched better working systems so they can be compatible with Windows.
If you think Microsoft are uninovative now, imagine a world where they don't feel they have to compete because they effectively have a legally mandated monopoly over the media format that everone uses.
The best case in point in the mainframe. It was developed into a mature product over the mid 1900s, and then reached it peak in the late 60's. By the late 80's, the microcomputer underdog was replacing the mainframe in many applications. Sure there are still places a mainframe is used, but the PC was seen to be more flexible, and allowed a more democratic use of technology. The PC became the GPC, and the mainframe was relegated to a few verticle markets.
Well the PC has had it's time in the sun, and we are seeing the same problems. Huge investments, not really in hardware, but in software. Single vendor lock backed by the holding for ransom of critcal company data in proprietary formats. Incredible problems on managing thousands of individual machines. THe expectations that novices can manage thier own machines. All this has proven quite unrealistic.
Some of us will continue to use the PC for many years in the same way that some of us welcomed mainframe access until the terminal was torn away from our grasps. However, those that just want a solution, might choose other routes. Web services might be that route. For a bussiness we might have a hybrid situation of central servers and cheap smart terminals. This has been tried, but what has killed it is that MS still wants the full license fee, so there is not cost saving. We still need to pay MS, and we still need to have a computer that can run the OS, even if we need this power for nothing else.
Some enterprising accountant will one day force the question of why does every worker bee need an individualized mid range computer, when all we really run is 2 applications that can be served over the network, email, and a browser, all of which can be run on a much cheaper machine and *nix. No reason to have MS extort money, no reason to have the BSA on our asses and in our bussinesses. I know people who worked with IBM, and they said this kind of greedy behavior is exactly what almost killed IBM, and it will be what kills the PC.
And Dell and the others are scared. MS needs to sell upgrades of the OS. Dell needs an excuse for consumers to by new machines. If the office goes to cheaper appliances to run the few applications, instead of the GPC, then the employess will run the same stuff at home. Some who wants games might go with a PC, or a console. Other might go with Apple. But most might go witht the Wal*Mart special that will do what it needs to do, connect to the web services, and not require the $100 investment in spyware protection, the continuous security upgrades, and the annoying serial numbers. It will just work.
Gates want the pc era to last forever because MS does not learn the lessons of history. Therefore they are going to be destined to repeat the history. In 10 years it will be as quaint to have a PC in your house as it is to have a wood burning stove.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
In relation to what the article says about end-to-end production.
Yes, Apple produces a lot of products that work well together. Ipod works with Itunes works on Apple computer which runs I[insert name] software.
The problem is when the user needs something slightly different than what they offer. The one little application that only runs on windows is enough to stop people from buying anything apple related.
Apple's boot camp aims to fix this problem, but it clearly states on their web site that they don't support windows or boot camp itself. Who's going to risk destroying all of their Apple files so they can run one little windows application? (people who visit slashdot don't count).
Apple needs to make a version of boot camp reliable enough that they can support it for anyone who's bought an apple computer. I'd buy an apple laptop in a second if I knew there was some assurance that I wasn't going to corrupt my entire Apple OS install when I try to dual boot.
I suppose this might seem a little off topic, but I didn't see anything related to mobile devices in the article. Oh and by the way, one of the articles in the post is only available to subscribers of the web site it's hosted on.
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
While I will never part with my own personal computer, I know many people who are happy to work off whichever terminal is around - think gmail, flickr... with an on-line word processor and somewhere (gmail?) to store your files, many people are happy to use whichever computer is nearest and connected to the internet.
I don't think anyone is going to start selling less-powerful machines, but net cafes and other access points might as well have dumb terminals, all thats need is to be able to access and use the applications that run in your web browser.
I think the biggest hurdle to this accessibility is DRMd files - you can't go into a net cafe and buy a song off iTunes to dl'd to your ipod, unless that is the only copy you will ever want (and wont delete it) (or can you? can you once-off authorize the computer? - seems counterproductive if you cant get the song off your ipod later).
Gates may be right in that the PC isn't going away tomorrow, but as always, it's a pain having to endure his annoying big brother attitude, patting our collective heads, telling us what's what: "The reality is a little different. The truth is..." Technology is continually moving forward, and Microsoft's thinking apparently isn't, so things will probably change rather rapidly. The truth is we don't know what things will look like. Nor does Gates or Microsoft.
Beauty is in the beholder of the eye.
nice, the article needs a login.. -1 for the poster
i can't believe no one's said that yet
seriously, though, isn't it likely that the answer to the once-nauseatingly-ubiquitous ("bingo!" for those of you playing buzzword-bingo as you read down the page) question about What Will Be The Digital Hub of your networked life? is: the PC?
in this week of PS3 price-shock, it seems even more ridiculous than it once did to think that the PS() woulda/coulda/shoulda been the Hub
i'm biased, definitely, since i work at http://www.orb.com/ but still i think the idea that some other device is going to become the hub, when the PC has all this processing power, huge footprint, strong extendability, is comic - and there are lots of folks making the PC something more in the background than it ever was before
now if only apple would license its OS...
You'd be surprised what's not on the map in this country. - Mulder
One only hears about the 64K memory insight.....Well this time I cutout the article and intend to frame it... This article was unbelievable - desultory and with ambigious usage of the term PC - often mixing PC (the device)and personal computing.... Of course the PC as we know it will not disappear - it will just go the way of mainframes ....and ofcourse personal computing is going to go beyong PC - replaced by new devices that do not need 1. Windows 2. Intel microchip.
Companies rarely choose the best product. Thin client stations have been around for ages, but companies buy PCs. They will continue to do so, and most companies will insist on Dell/Intel/Windows regardless of whether or not those are the best choices.
The fact that client stations have been around for ages, yet are not chosen, strongly suggests they are not the best solution. One possible reason: The GP mentioned a Sun Ray, they are $299 without display. The entry level Dell Dimension B110 is $299 with a 17" monitor. More possible reasons: The UI/Front end software is already written and working, and it's DOS, OS/2, or Windows based.
"Overrated" is overrated. It's a coward's moderation and/or a tool for abuse. At least the mod had the balls to risk meta-moderation.
Vista may well mark the end of the Windows era.
Finally, I've been waiting so long for the move to OS/2.
PCs are dead!
Look at Google: More and more tools are becoming available that are as good as anything on windows for 95% of the users - Mail, Calender, a MS Word compatible tool (http://www.writely.com) for starters ... Wait and see. A lot of people are fed up with Gates goal of world dominance.
The funny thing is, both Gates _and_ Wall Street are "right", but they're talking about different things.
From the point of view of whether the PC will disappear and people will start running their corporate software on PDAs (yeah, that would be a "fun" data entry job), Gates is right. The PC isn't going anywhere any time soon.
But I suspect that's not what Wall Street is talking about. Wall Street isn't about having a product or a steady market, but about buying and selling shares. A company which just has a steady product and a steady income isn't that interesting there, because its shares don't go up by that much, if at all. You don't make the big bucks trading those.
What you want ideally is something with seemingly exponential growth. (Even if it can't be sustained much longer, you can probably find an idiot who can be dazzled by graphs showing that in 20 years they'll have their products in 10 billion houses and bogus formulas calculating a fair share value based on that prediction. He'll buy your shares for that price.) You want spectacular announcements driving the share values up. Etc.
Companies just having a steady market and income are boring in that aspect. They may make enough money to stay afloat for ever, but you won't make a mint trading their shares.
Cue investors starting to scream for measures that can help them hype the shares before they dump them, even if they mean gutting the company in the long term. E.g., firing a quarter of the employees in the name of cost savings can create a temporary surge in profits and drive shares up. So it's always a popular thing to demand. It may be unsustainable or outright fatal in the long run (see for example SGI exitting the graphics arena without even a fight back then, and where SGI is now), but in the short run it makes Wall Street very happy.
(And I'm not even gonna go into such abnormal situations as a profitable company being outright valued a negative sum. Seriously. At one point 3Com was seen by investors as being worth _less_ than the shares it owned in Palm Inc. Divisions with real products, market and income were basically worth a negative sum. Cue idiotic investors starting to scream that 3Com should get rid of those.)
From the Wall Street perspective the PC era is over not because the PC market is somehow disappearing, but because the exponential growth is long gone and in fact growth is slowing down. Even the upgrade cycles are slowing down. E.g., I have a 2.26 GHz workstation at work and, well, look at when Intel launched that CPU and how many years ago "Moore's Law" said a 4.5 GHz replacement should have been available... and still isn't. It used to be that a 3 year-old PC would be almost obsolete, whereas nowadays for most businesses and even most home users (hardcore gamers notwithstanding) there's very little reason to buy a new one.
And major hype-worthy announcements are getting fewer and far in between. Vista is taking for ever to come out, and just can't be used to create the same hype as, say, Windows 95's move to 32 bits anyway.
Even if you look at other companies than MS, well, look at the Slashdot headlines form the last year. There just isn't anything sounding like "fast growing company with killer app/hardware/whatever, poised to be worth tens of billions in the long run", so there's nothing to promise making $$$$ fast with their shares. Everywhere it's just small upgrades and incremental tweaks. What passes for a tech headline these days is something like "AMD announces DDR2 support next year".
So I suspect that's what Wall Street means by PC era being over. They see the same turning into a steady industry as Gates sees, but from their perspective tere's a lot less to be excited about that future.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
To summarise the technology: An image is formed by directly drawing on the user's retina using a low powered laser. The image therefore is essentially overlayed over the "real world" as a type of HUD.
Experimental at the moment, but it might happen. Also, this doesn't answer the problem of ease of input.
But the applications of this are huge - combined with GPS and/or other positioning technologies, you could overlay your vision with all sorts of exciting information - a bit like Terminator Vision.
Just for starters, you could get dynamically provided directions that tell you whre to go in a shopping centre or an unfamiliar office building.
Tourists could access massive amounts of info about all the things they see around them - a bit like those self-guided museum tours with the headsets.
Not to mention the creation of completely new advertising medium. Goodbye dynamic street billboards, hello direct retinal personalised/targeted ads.
If these things became ubiquitous, we could even get rid of all the street signs that clutter our roads (or whatever) so that only those relevant to the user are displayed to them (no need to show the parking restrictions to someone who is just walking by)
Well, I better stop before I get too excited, but you get the idea.
In the version of Encyclopaedia Britannica that I have, "Indiannapolis - Istanbul" is about the thinnest volume.
- RG>
Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
Has anyone else noticed that every time Bill Gates says something, he manages to slip in the words "innovation" and "choice?"
I strongly disagree with Mr. Gates. I would gladly replace all of 22 PCs in my kitchen for a mainframe.
There you are, staring at me again.
to start some trolling, flaming and .... whatever.
If article proves something it is that WSJ is full of it as ever.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
ian
Sorry but anyone that can take the wall street journal seriously is off their heads. Last time I browsed through it it read like a betting rag, with the unwelcome addition of numerous religious "Jesus is my CEO!" type stories in there. I kept checking the front page to make sure that this was, indeed, the infamous wall street journal.
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
Not really. An astronaut has very little to do with the flight, unless something goes wrong. You can't automate many tasks of drilling, so you need to know how it is done.
Heck, apart from the fitness requirements, I could probably survive a trip up to the ISS on the shuttle and back.
The end of PC era? Yes in a way it is true. But not by replacing PC with gadgets like some people think. It is time for more connectivity. Today computers are too powerful for tasks they are dealing with. As more and more gadgets are internet aware and speeds of local/home connections are growing it's time for some kind of central computer oriented structure.
I see house with a powerful server and large data storage with different connectivity options. One thing that will certenly change soon is that other computers/gadgets are going to be more purpose made (Digital TV, VOIP phone,movie purchasing etc will all connect to server).And things are going this way already. Just think about game consoles etc. Personal computer as we know it today will stay but in a form of laptop or low power console with storage and applications built on a home server. When avarage speed of home connection is going to be sufficient there will be no need for home servers and we will probably have to buy some data storage space on net and decide which OS to boot on our console that day and which programs to use.I predicted this happening in 1996 and things are going this way ever since with some huge movements lately. In terms of software development Linux and open source has a bright future. Reason for this is quick adoption of new hardware structures(processors) and internet . Microsoft is aware of this situation and will do/is doing anything to keep afloat this movement but it will make a huge problems for them too keep with such a quick process and still keep the quality of their products. I hope open source movement is aware of this happening and will use it's advantages.
"The need for the big box and grunty CPU is mostly marketing and mindset."
It depends on what you want to run. There is still a large amount of applications not feasible over computers at mobile/PDA power level: games like HL2/Doom 3/Far Cry, 3d rendering and raytracing, image/video processing, programming/compiling, working with databases, etc.
If mobile devices become as powerful as computers, then of course there would be no reason for the big beige boxes. But I suspect that computers will already be as small as mobile devices then.
Wall street analysts aren't looking for companies with high growth potential - if that potential is currently estimated accurately, the stock price already reflects expectations of high growth*, and the share price won't budge even if the company and its profits grow by leaps and bounds.
Rather, what they want are dark horses that other analysts have misjudged and under / overvalued. Of course, expectations of future growth are more uncertain (as a rule) than expectations of constant or no growth, so for those who want the extra interest from gambling a bit, going for quick-growth stocks might be more attractive.
* Also, analysts and investors are as prone to stampedes and collective lapses of judgement as the rest of us (if not more so) - hence, you can get collective hysteria when eveyone thinks that all stocks in a "growth sector" are somehow all undervalued at once! (Or rather, rising stock prices create expectations of higher stock prices that cause people to buy stocks... etc. - of course, those kinds of bubbles tend to burst.)
There is Nokia foldable keyboard that fit in larger pockets. There there is tiny keyboard that can project the image of keyboard on anysmooth surface and it looks where you press there...
Now is a nice point, if you don't like them, then plug your USB keyboard to the phone.
Yes you read it correctly the cellphone has miniUSB connector.
If there is somesort of miniDVI being made for cellphones then the screen size problem can be fixed too for desktop use, while on the road you need to rely on less ideal input devices.
So yes, it isn't going to take long until mobile phones can be used as a computer, just plug in the periphelieas.
How many people *have to* play Oblivion as *their work* ?
(I mean, really. Not what's the average slashdotter's dream).
Look around : in most enterprise, computer are just used for basic office work and accessing the intranet/googling information from the internet.
A lot of enterprise (inssurance companies, etc...) are starting to use laptops as working station for their employee, because it's easier for them to move their data around with them, faster to relocate them to different office, lets them work at home or in their train etc...
And docking a laptop to nice big screen and a full sized keyboard, isn't that much different than hooking a smartphone/PDA to those same peripherals. The only difference is in the "work in their train" part, where the Smartphone/PDA user loose some screen/keyboard estate.
(although there're nice fullsized foldable keyboards. I use one with my Palm. And in some professions having a pocketable unit is BETTER than a laptop. HINT: Doctors. We like to have drugs database on pockter-sized devices that are much more handy than carying around a full sized laptop when visiting patients)
Now look at the current trends in products :
- foldable keyboard (like Thinkoutside's, Targus', etc...)
- or even laser virtual keyboards
- smart phone that can be hooked to TV-Set and Projectors (initially designed so you can watch the nice picture you took with you phone. But now company realised that they can market them as "able to display your PowerPoint presentation without a PC !!!")
- Laser-based matchbox-sized Projectors are currently researched.
So yes, your home made l33t Beige Box is more powerful.
But for a corporate worker it is also clunky.
Tomorrow traveling salesman are very likely to have their work stored on their Smartphone/PDA.
(Even today some doctors keep their patient's medical imaging handy in iPods - Powerful radiology stations are nice, but taking an iPod to a patient's bed is easier).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
With the wave of virtualization technologies starting to pop up, people have a wider variety of applications available to them than ever before. Also, the idea of web-based productivity suites and other OS-independent technologies indicate that the trend is towards becoming more and more technology independent.
Microsoft is not acknowledging these trends and is continuing on its way as it always has. If they don't change direction soon, they will be a dinosaur.
GJC
Gregory Casamento
## Chief Maintainer for GNUstep
Heh, i haven't seen TV for months, or maybe 1-2 years. Downloading content will totally kill the TV in 1-2 years.
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
The truth is that the model which has fueled the incredible popularity and affordability of the PC will continue ...
So now Bill Gates can predict the future? Geeze, the guy really *is* drinking his own coolaid.
- The Kessel run is for nerf herders. I can circumnavigate the entire Central Finite Curve in a lot less than 12 parse
Well I guess Gates is finally right seeing as an era is the longest division of geological time I should hope PCs still have a while to go..
I was moded as flamebait.. Go figure..
t ream_id=186
But I saw a demo while at IBM by Bill Joy of Sun fame, it was jini and how devices could comunicate and be aware of what they're connected to and provide the correct functionality (you hook up a camera to a printer the camera can print, hook camera up to hard drive, camera can off load pictures).
That way 1999.
We have a little of that today so we are edging closer.
see bill joys speach..
http://technetcast.ddj.com/tnc_play_stream.html?s
They just drop into the background and out of the public consciousness.
There are probably more datacenters running mainframes today than there were in 1970, but they are part of a technology "ecosystem" in which most of the "biomass" is in PCs. The move towards portable special purpose devices such as iPods and possibly web pads, the proverbial Internet toasters will be similar. Everyone will have a PC, maybe even more PCs than they have now. While it will play a hub role in their IT use, it won't be the bulk or center of their IT experience. That's a good thing, because PC interfaces suck. Sure, most people can be trained to use them after a fashion, just like you can train a circus elephant to walk on its hind legs. The amazing thing isn't that the elephant does this well, it's that it does it at all.
I've been part of the computing industry for twenty five years now. It didn't take long to figure out that trend is towards more ubiquitous, smaller, and more connected devices. PC market saturation does not seem to me to be a significant barrier to this trend continuing. It's just that PC oriented companies will become boring providers of a useful but not very expensive or glamorous commodity.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Perfect reasons why predictions from billg aren't worth much.
Wouldn't it have been more intelligent to send astronauts trained to be oil drillers to the moon to deal with the asteroid instead of sending up oil drillers trained to be astronauts?
Don't knock it. It worked. :)
The Desktop PC is dying, the server is growing and the laptop rules them all.
I sit here writing on a dodgy ole laptop, but remoted to a 3ghz XP Pro (server/ workstation)
My XP system gives me the grunt when I need it gives me a central server (and handles another 2 users remotely).
Another Linux box runs a webserver and lets me play with it when I am in the mood.
it started with a wireless keyboard and mouse and has moved to using my laptop for everything. quite simply working remotely works for everything except when i need to load or burn a disk.
I placed an order yesterday for a new and fairly remarkable laptop. remarkable because its cheap around £400 and should run osx86 10.4.4 perfectly. It will also connect to my servers in a similar manner to my xp running laptop.
So now I can have cheap hardware and a good operating system useable anywhere and keep windows compatability when i need it.
A wireless laptop ideally widescreen is perfect for me. Looking at my desk I am wondering why I keep it. it holds 2 monsterous CRT's barely turn them on these days.
realistically a smallish cupboard is all i need to house my PC needs. a Smallish elegant laptop is all that is needed with a few anonymous and hidden boxen for storage mainly.
The only thing my new laptop doesnt have is a dvd burner
but i can live with that.
you know now you can get vmware for free, and thats my next avenue for exploration have a box hosting what i want to run and remote in.
The only thing i am really missing is an easy to set up remote linux desktop with sound. Give me that and the windows habit will be severely curtailed in my household at least.
PC's are not at an end of life yet but perhaps the desktop PC is getting there and osx86 is bringing a revolution to the pc mass market. Linux could do the same but isn't quite there yet.
In work we run cytrix which means the vast majority of workstations are just over powered terminals.
There could be an end to windows or a vastly reduced share in the market place in sight. Vista is a failure already because while security might sell it, Drm will cripple it.
I think hell just froze over... This article is a load of crap. In reality, we need both models. Ying and yang if you will. There are always going to be half the people, like my mom, who want an end-to-end product that just comes out of the box and does what it is supposed to and is locked down to the point where she can't tweak (i.e break) it. Then there are people like me, and probably everyone else here on /. that want something they can build, break, upgrade, choose, etc. 2 worlds, peacefully co-existing. PC era is not dead, if anything there is bound to be more life as technology advances, say fiber-optic bus, integrated hd-tv tuners, 3D monitors, VR headsets, etc.
No, because you can't get your 900 cable channels if you're not at home.
Something (portable) like the video iPod, however, certainly is shaping up to really challenge TV, since screen size is really the only difference, compared to watching your Tivo at home.
Oh yeah, except for sound dropouts, and lower sound quality, and lack of high-speed internet on them, etc. Cell phones are winning, and they're not nearly as nice. Form a new theory.
I don't think you know what an "order of magnitude" is.
Processing power is less than an order of magnitude difference, between handhelds and desktops. Slightly larger handhelds can have standard notebook hard drives, making them less than an order of magnitude of difference.
"Display" isn't even near an order of magnitude, unless you compare the lowest-end portable devices, with the very highest-end PC displays.
As for input. My 10 year-old, pocket-sized Psion has a keyboard that is much more comfortable than most laptops/desktop, unless you've got EXTREMELY large fingers.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
RTFA: The WSJ article was arguing that Apple's closed system, which they called end-to-end system, was better than the PC's opened system, called component system, because Apple delivered an easy to use device that didn't require the user to do much except hit "play" or click "email".
I can see how the WSJ can argue that Apple is meeting the demands for simple devices, but they are basically saying that a choice in applications is all that the user should want. I don't think only hard-core gamers and other niche users will want a choice in hardware. I'm not an Apple user, but last time I checked, it was more expensive to be an Apple owner and more of a hassle if it needed support precisely because of its proprietary business model. On the other hand, the PC component model has fueled the last 20 years of productivity gains by creating a market for cheap hardware, one that has grown, expanded, and specialized for various users. It is surprising to me that the WSJ can argue that is suddenly going to change, or even should.
They also compared three different personal technologies which are not equivalent: the Apple iPod, the Windows PC, and Microsoft XBox. (And many comments here include cellphones and PDA's.) I don't think these devices will all compete and leave just one standing--each device has a feature mix that makes it optimal for various situations. There may be some consolidation, and definitely more integration to enable data sharing, but the PC is not going to be replaced by the gaming console, nor is the cell phone going to be a primary entertainment device. Offering a closed system is good on a single purpose device, but having an open system is preferrable, even required, for a multi-purpose machine.
There are a few things that have changed over the years and I think that's why the end of the PC is being heralded.
/pdaphone
The key things are wireless networking, remote desktop access, osx86, linux and VMware.
And the thing which is bringing windows downfall security and DRM.
firstly let me start by saying how I am writing this. Remotely from a dodgy ole laptop to a 3Ghz XP Pro server (which supports 3 concurrent users).
My laptop provides a mouse screen and keyboard which i can physically use anywhere on my LAN The XP Server gives the grunt that this laptop hasn't got for cpu intensive tasks. without me having to sit near the thing.
I enjoy that freedom i resent having to put a cd or dvd in the server (usually to burn something).
now i also have a linux box also accessed remotely which runs my little webserver and lets me explore linux as an alternative (right now I'm primarily a windows user).
I have 2 big crt monitors hooked upto the xp pro system but they are rarely on because i don't work directly with it.
Work uses cytrix (So basically most pc's are glorified terminals).
now I placed an order last night for an inexpensive laptop which is capable of running osx86. When i get it the first osx86 program will be a remote desktop client so i can keep windows compatability.
I have big hopes of osX86 and one of them is to retire my windows boxen to a cupboard somewhere. To be used when i need cpu muscle and windows compatability.
now to any Linux OS developers out there i need a better remote desktop solution for linux. because the way i see it is that a linux desktop shouldn't be expected to run locally by default and I want sound from my linux desktop to where i am working.
Vmware may actually help me consolidate the operating systems i run to a single physical x86 with grunt and all access from a light weight use anywhere laptop.
Pda
they are nice when your on the go you can take your music with you write letters (slowly) video random events navigate your car. but the screen is too small to replace a pc in most circumstances. most aps are designed with a larger screen in mind so remoting from a pda is a pain.
Windows Vista- why for me it fails.
1)I do not want my rights to be managed. In theory it is supposed to bring security to windows (at last) which is a plus but in reality having my freedom taken away my rights managed is not something I am willing to trade off.
The Future - from my viewpoint
it has to be lightweight laptop systems running OSX86 or Linux with a home/work server supplying grunt and storage capacity when its needed.
Working directly on a Desktop or Tower system seems so clunky to me. its like a throwback to the mainframe systems of old. The laptop gives you the freedom to work anywhere and with any os you choose.
So maybe its true the PC ERA is coming to an end.
A local household server running Linux and a widescreen laptop with a processor that doesnt burn too much power ( my new laptop offers 4- 4.5 hours battery life.) this seems like a good way of working to me, what do you think?
Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
Buggy whip manufacturers say that buggy whips are essential to the future. Saddle makers disagree.
The ______ Agenda
Desktops have cards. Beyond that, the differences between a PC and a sub-notebook are really pretty small. Slap a few usb 2 or firewire ports on a notebook and all the peripheral issues become non-issues. If you don't need cards to do what you want to do with the machine then price (likely combined with some degree of simply not seeing any benefit to having a mobile option) is the only reason I can see not to go with a portable machine + peripherals at home. But neither of those reasons are "the tech canna handle it" kind of things.
your the first person I saw say this and I was thinking it the whole time. Yes, this gets predicted somewhere about every six months. I'm still laughing at "the network is the computer" statements from an ancient issue of Wired I read. gawd, I even worked in a computer that went thin client for certain scenarios and guess what - thin clients although easy to manage end up being more costly and have less power and are limited in use when compared to a cheaper desktop PC. they are the dodo that never even got a foot in the door. The BEST use of them is low end cash registers anything else is near pointless. AND they were supposed to be the death of the PC. everyone thinks they have a PC killer, or so they say, but usually they are trying to sell something - in other words, this isn't a real article, it's just more FUD coming from companies trying to sell competing products.
yeah, don't get me started about typing on a cell phone, i'm no kid and i didn't grow up with one, so everytime someone texts me I don't bother replying until i get to a PC or see them in person. i find it way easier than typing some halfassed message that's a pain to type. i'll replace my desktop PC as soon as my PDA or cell has a 17 inch LCD display, a comfortable keyboard and mouse, a table and chair to put it on, then I will be all like "check out my killer pda man, i dropped PC's".
Let's take a quick sampling of low end computers on sale at Best Buy this week. Roughly speaking these models are averaging around 150GB of drive space, 3GHZ of CPU power, 512MB of RAM, and the ability to display several megapixels of graphical data at once.
Divide those stats by ten and yeah, you've basically got yourself a high-end phone/PDA combo like the Treo700. Obviously the difference is even greater if you make your comparison with high-end PCs and not bargain basement models like we've done here.
Even the Treo700 is pushing the boundaries of "mobile" for a lot of people. If we restrict the definition of "mobile" to "something the average person can comfortably fit in their pocket" the difference grows even greater.
So. Do you know what an "order of magnitude" is?
Except those larger handhelds aren't supplanting PCs, which is what TFA was about: devices that are (or could one day) supplant PCs. PDAs aren't supplanting anything at all, because PDA sales have been declining since the late 1990s. Google "PDA sales decline" for more results than you could read in a lifetime. The only things gobbling up market share and sales are mobile phones, not Palm-esque PDAs and certainly not total market failures like your Psion.
(Which isn't to disrespect your Psion. Those things are awesome and I want one! But they're certainly not grabbing marketshare.)
OtakuBooty.com: Smart, funny, sexy nerds.
So the best way is to say it ain't happening; while making investments in future technologies. When the change does happen, proclaim that we were already there. And by the way, did you know MS invented the internet? ;)
Ain't that right, Mr. Smith?
Back in the nineties, they said the net is not happening, and stuck on the PC platform. now MS is scared of google! imagine that?
-------
oh yeah, and BTW.. did you know MS invented the internet?
Gates must have brushed up on some of Jobs' keynotes or memos.
--
Prediction:
Technology to persist up to Vista release or "kingdom come."
(whichever comes first)
Bluetooth between your cellphone, headset, mouse and keyboard...or your XBox...or your TiVO...or your fridge.
It's not so difficult to imagine.
This is hot in the real estate industry:
http://www.topproducer.com/products/Palmhandhelds/
What is interesting is that Top Producer gave up on the LAN-based Outlook-syncing model (with the main database tables residing on the Broker's PC in the office) after every Patch Tuesday broke their suite. I had the pleasure of watching one of their poor field techs struggle for four hours trying to set up one of my clients. He failed. His comment: "Every time Microsoft does any patching on Outlook, this thing breaks."
They're not having nearly as many problems now that it's Internet-based and off of the Broker's PC. And real estate agents just won't, by and large, carry a laptop around with them. When you spend all day in a car, even a small laptop is a PITA. The Palm fits the bill. Cell phones, PDAs and digital cameras are the tools of choice.
Also have had clients in the insurance industry who live and die by a PDA. Those who sell homeowner's policies have to be on the road constantly inspecting roofs and such. Laptops don't cut it there, either. Farmer's Insurance (U.S) has had a PDA (in the form of an ancient Texas Instruments advanced calculator of some sort, as I recall) since the late 80's/early 90's for its agents to generate quotes on the road. I'm not sure what they're using currently, but I'll bet they have something that runs on a modern PDA or 3G cell phone.
Anytime I see the words "innovation" and "choice" coming from someone at Microsoft, I stop listening. Since when is Microsoft a proponent of either?
-W
The Desktop PC is dead, but the PDA will not be able to take its place for at least another 10 years.
I think what we'll see is more and more use of smaller and smaller laptops. The current standard size for a small laptop is 12", but you could easily scale that down further to 8" or 9", small enough to fit in a largeish handbag. With ubiquitous wi-fi and bluetooth, there's not as much need for the profusely-cabled desktop pc, so you can have most of the portability of a pda and most of the power of a desktop. Once smaller-scale components reach a certain threshold of power compared to their full-size desktop cousins, I think the desktop environment will vanish for all but a few applications (e.g. computer labs). In fact, if you look at the way computer sales are going, you might even say it's already happening.
I had a job interview with MS in 2001... for work in their handheld div..and was asked what I thought a strategy was. I said "Apple is doing it right" and that ended the interview. I'm glad I didn't get the job.
Yes PCs are somewhat ubiquitous. They will become increasingly so, like the telephone. Continuing that analogy, people are facinated with the features of their wireless phones but more than a little blase about the wired handset.
If you could produce a pocket rocket with the storage of an iPod, the conectivity of a Treo and an interface for a high quality lens and a garmin fortrex (a small USB hub would fit the bill), powered by a fuel cell, with heads up display... Chances are the device will be recognised more as a phone with lots of features more than a portable PC.
I guess I just muddle along with this stupid PC, which is becoming more and more like a thin client appliance every day as I have less and less capability to jack around with the data that I store on it. But then that's only because I wouldn't want to break any laws by chopping up the audio/video I purchased and thereby label myself as a terrorist.
To me, they have totally different uses. I take notes at school on a palm pilot with a keyboard because for me, it would be way overkill to carry around a laptop. Besides that, most computing tools (website, general applications) are designed with the PC in mind, formatted for it, supposed to be compatible with it. Changes definitely won't be instant.
WSJ seems to be a pay only site. At least every link to them I have tried is pay only. Is there anyway to read these articles without plunking down for a subscription? If not, why is slashdot wasting my time posting links to that I can not read?
Stonewolf
This is just the same old thing you read about every few years. The stupidity of the masses pick it up and run with it.
Thin clients have been tried over and over. It is simply another implementation of mainframe/terminal approach or even citrix style computing.
Little girls and boys the PC is here to stay. It isn't going to be replaced by smart phones and pdas. PDAs are simply small implementations of PCs with limited capabilities (memory, storage, connectivity, etc). Phones are a comm device.
Whomever wrote and whoever believes what was written that stated the PC is gone is so far off their rocker that one might consider them to be daft. There'll be no technology that replaces the PC but the PC itself. It will be in different reincarnations but it'll still be the PC. The box will be smaller (maybe), the capacity and speed higher (certainly), the fundamental physics technology will be more modern (certainty), the displays larger (guaranteed), the input modified (as usual) but the computer itself will remain the same.
What you all should be doing, instead of just reading this trash from once reputable news print companies you should be trying to come up with ideas about how the computer could be in 20-50 years. I certainly don't want to see more larger boxes and would like to see a computer 100x more powerful than the best desktop today (in all areas, graphics, sound, processor, storage) in a unit that will fit in my shirt pocket and can be carried back and forth to work but still have the power to connect to a large monitor, a keyboard & mouse, and connect to network peripherals, with all the processing power done on that shirt pocket sized box.
I will not need at home thin client computing. There's no need for it. I can't train everyone in my neighborhood to set up and maintain a distributed thin client network in their homes, nor would people need this for a long time to come.
To even postulate that the PC is dead is like saying man is evolving to breath underwater because the earth is 2/3 covered with water and we'd be better there. It's a long way off, if it ever does happen. Those guys proposing such things are daft and certainly used no logic.
The hope of any tech journalist is to be able to read the trends and apply those toward preducting the future of technology. These guys see the google calendar type offering, the Office Live offering, etc., and they begin to postulate. Most of the time they are so far off base.
It seems the older they get and the longer they've been in the industry the farther off base for long term projections. The newer they are they just suck and are almost never close on any count of their predictions.
This is nothing more than a newbie predictor with no hope of ever becoming a long term predictor.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
As I acknowledged soon after posting and re-reading the article (and subsequently TFA). Why it was modded TROLL I have no fucking clue, other than people are mis-using mod points. I was in error (resulting from skimming) and I fucking admitted it before some wackjob wasted mod points marking my post a troll instead of putting those points to better use by modding up an on-target post. Oh well, such is life on /.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
A PC is like a Honda Civic. Cheap, lots of parts, reliable, cheap to maintain. Music players, cell phones and game consoles are like bikes, ATVs, and boats. And Macs are like VWs, expensive, few parts, image-driven, reliable. People buy more PCs for the same reason people buy more Civics. Not only the price, but the possible customization, the greater application availability (most of the time, a five minute Googling is needed to find software that does what needs to be done, try that on a Mac or other "end-to-end" device). Cell phones are extremely good at closed standards. As previously said, most cellphones have enough grunt to run like a 1998 desktop PC, but providers don't want it to be so. They don't want you to be able to connect to another network, they don't want you to install whatever software you want to.
In the end it's all about the user. I see it this way. On the Simplicity - Customizability scale, Linux is on the customizability side, and OSX is on the simplicity one. Windows is right in the middle.
BTW, Linux PCs are still PCs. And the civic analogy remains, you only need a stronger desire to tweak.
This from the guy who said that a computer would never need more than 640 kilobytes of memory.
Merely replacing a PC with a fridge, cellphone, TIVO or XBox doesn't satisify the claim that "The network is the computer".
Gates reminds me of the old guy dying of the plague in Monty Python, as he's trundled off by his son ...
Seriously, though, I'm probably going to buy a $350 PC with an AMD processor for my son this week - Gates is facing the cold hard fact that his OS and Office prices are way too much of the purchase price of many PCs now that the usual price is way below $1000.
Economics is a harsh mistress, no matter how many billions you have stuffed in your mattress.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
[My PS2] will always work with any PS2 game.
And my PS1 will always work with any PS1 game. So where are the new PS1 titles?
Well they will be as soon as a better way to play Unreal Tournament is devised. Until then the pc will just get smaller,faster,quieter,more stable,and cheaper. I have never seen a great push to improve the speed of a text editor or the graphics on a spreadsheet so maybe if we just count the lame work-a-day uses then Uncle Billy is correct,but for the best gaming experience those little boxes you hook up to a tv just can't compete with a good or even semi-good PC
That's all well and good for consumption, but what about content creation?
<sarcasm>
Don't worry. Authors who have been signed to licensed and bonded publishers will still be able to rent equipment for the production of sound recordings and audiovisual works.
</sarcasm>
Just like big iron, the PC isn't "going anywhere" it's just fading into the background. Perfectly usable PC's are rapidly approaching the bubble pack price range ($150) and size. When that happens, they will be a disposable commodity that has to work until it is thrown away. This is very bad news for M$, and good news for the company that masters the art of allowing your data to move to the next PC when you throw away the previous one.
At this point, the PC is a brick, a lego brick. Omnipresent, but as exciting as a brick.
Cell phones, PDAs, Tablets, and iPods aren't competitors to the PC, whey are finer grain devices. Just as a mainframe doesn't compete with a PC as a browser, fine grain devices provide different functionality. A PDA makes for a great ebook, but a dubious word processor.
My opinion is that the future is about presentation of data and commonality of sensors. I should be able to watch the same movie on my game boy and my projector with little effort (I do, but Joe Sixpack doesn't yet). In the same fashion, a GPS, camera or a keyboard should talk to my PDA or laptop seamlesly. PDAs, PCs and cellphones will simply be platforms for displays, sensors and input devices.
I first saw the phrase Post-PC back in 1998. This was after the Palm came out, and Infoworld dittoheads were declaring that with PDAs, nobody really needed a PC any more.
You're right. It's mindless punditry. It's like declaring the invention of the airplane as the post-automobile era, not realizing that the devices complement one another.
It's probably not the death of the PC yet... but predictions of the death of the Microsoft PC might actually be accurate this time.
The problem with "The Network is the PC" arguments of yesteryear is that there really wasn't a network when that slogan was first uttered. Today we have a network that's actually poised to replace the PC. Probably half the applications I use on a daily basis these days are on the web, and with the exception of Word and Photoshop, all the programs which do run on my PC are reliant on the internet to work and be useful.
In other areas, the PC as a gaming platform is waning, and the PC as a media player is losing to dedicated devices like the iPod.
So... if you're getting your media on dedicated appliances, playing games on consoles, and your main software platform is the web (accessible via anything that can run Firefox), what do you need a full blown desktop with MS Windows for?
The Washington Post definately jumped the gun on this. The PC era is not dead, but it has an will significantly slow over time. A 2.0ghz computer will do most average-home-user tasks just fine. These users will find little need to upgrade their PCs, thus the PC market will slow with the loss of those sales. However when "eh-hhm" if Microsoft Vista comes out users may find a need or just a desire to upgrade to the newest operating system. PCs will see a slight increase from those sales. And lets not begin to forget one HUGE market for PC sales ... college students. The number of college students increases every year and new PCs and laptops are bought for them. The author of this article should have just came out and said what he really meant ... "Microsoft Has to Get Its Shit Together."
This is mainly an article attacking Microsoft and it's failure to see the market trends. Even when Microsoft does catch a new market trend the always find a way to botch it somehow. Let me ask this, does anyone know someone who bought the Origami? Didn't think so. Apple has become hip again. Just watch an Apple commercial and you can notice they are trying to be "cool." Did you notice how they place that hip young actor next to a guy who mysteriously looks like Bill Gates?
The PC era is not dead. It has slowed because unless your playing games or doing graphic design (in which case you probably have a Mac) you don't need a 3.7 ghz computer or new Intel Duo core. However the PC market will continue to do well because of buisness need for cheap PCs to do spreadsheets on, college students to use MySpace and AIM, and finally because of word of mouth. I'm in IT and I can't tell you how once someone in a department gets a new PC that seems faster everyone else in the department wants one.
So to the Washington Post author who wrote this, you keep telling the people the PC era is dead as you continue ... and will continue to write your articles on your PC/laptop and not on your cell phone or PDA.
No, I will not work for your startup
Try buying a new PC game that will run on your 6 year old PC.
So-called "casual" games sold in boxes at Wal-Mart will run at playable frame rate on PCs even older than my 0.86 GHz clunker from December 2000. For instance, Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates from Ubisoft claims to need an 0.3 GHz CPU and a 4 MB video card. I tend not to play first-person shooters.
It's your /choice/ of operating system that's irrevelant. We all still need one, but it matters less what you choose. Which would be a win for Linux, as it is the cheapest and one of the most ubiquitous.
There's an excellent book on the subject... "The Invisible Computer" by Donald Norman. Very interesting read.
That's fine and all, except for that fact that you EXPLICITLY included them in your comparison, and are now backpedaling:
"cellphones and other mobile devices"
"mobile phones and PDAs"
"mobile devices"
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
From where I sit, a new PC gaming rig is now cheaper than a console. I don't see PC's as loosing the plot.
People will cary their data more often as devices improve, but there is still an incredible way to go on display, input and battery technology - and there will always be the next wave of tech that will need to be put somewhere - and in the case or strapped to the side of a PC will be the place. The next tech can be included in PC architecture before standardisation, miniaturisation and commodotisation take place enough to get it portable.
Wow. Such forethought. This coming from the man that proclaimed that the internet was only a fad.
I thought the computer was supposed to end the "Paper and Pen" era.
"A study by the University of California in Berkeley found that paper consumption in offices has gone up 43% since 1999"
No sig for you! Come back one year!