Debating the future of the desktop

When the Comdex trade show was the big technology showcase, the folks back home would always ask me what I saw that qualified as new and exciting. Sure enough, there always was a ton to gossip about. But by 2000, though, the really interesting innovations increasingly revolved around the Internet. Sure, cheaper, smaller, faster continued apace--but how many times can you really get worked up around Moore's Law?

(Credit: CNET News)

For obvious reasons, the Internet was attracting keen attention from developers--not to mention the hot money. But as a computer user, my nightmare scenario was also coming true.

After coalescing around the desktop metaphor during the Windows years, the industry seemed stuck for new ideas. The status quo arrangement, where human beings played second fiddle to the computer, was getting set in stone. The late, great MIT computer scientist Michael Dertouzos had railed against this lousy relationship, which defined man-machine interaction from the beginning of the mainframe era. The good news was that he was convinced it was all going to change one day.

Predicting when and how was the hard part.

So it was with more than slight interest that I read Nova Spivack's very nuanced piece on the future of the desktop, with a thesis that is spot on:

"Web desktops to date have simply have been clunky and slow imitations of the real thing at best. Others have been overly slick. But one thing they all have in common: none of them have nailed it."

Spivack instead envisions a future where your computer interface gets spread across different devices connected by a hosted Web service. Instead of a single "desktop" where you must log in front of a specific local device, your access would get spread across any of your devices as the line between Web and desktop blurs. (He calls it the Web 3.0 desktop.)

Today we think of our Web browser running inside our desktop as an application. But actually, it will be the other way around in the future: our desktop will run inside our browser as an application.

But Spivack says this far better than I can. Read his piece through and let me know whether you agree. And if not, what's your best guestimate how this is all going to evolve? However it turns out, we're long overdue for a big change.

[miob_istream]

Interesting in terms of how people see the transition. However, I don't foresee an immediate transition to a full web-only-dependable platform. Rather, it will be a hybrid between software and SaaS for quite some time until systems are reliable enough and privacy issues are entirely addressed. Even then there will be a need for some type of personal storage for high-sensitive personal data.

[atish505]

In 2000 I had a workstation/desktop and my first laptop fitted with web cam. That was the only devices with which I can access the NET.

Today I have the cool Cisco CP-7940G IP phone that works off the Internet. I have the D-Link DVC-2000 Video IP phone connected to my Flat screen TV that I use to attend remote meetings with my coworkers and team mates in India and Dubai.

I have the Nokia N8810 communicator tablet that allows me email, Web browsing, chat, IM and phone calls using VOIP soft phone.

So I have three devices that work off the Internet and are neither desktop or laptop.

May be in future I will have a 'True DVR connected over the Internet, a refrigerator, dishwasher, oven etc all connected tot eh web and controllable form my Mobile.

We are moving in a direction away from desktop, whether we realize it or not.

[artistjoh]

Well yes, to a point. I have completely replaced my desktop with a Macbook Pro because notebooks now have the power and sophistication to do the things that only a desktop could do just 5 years ago, so with the mobility factor my 17 inch laptop is the way to go for me. I am part of the move away from desktops, but I am not moving away from the need for a heavy duty processing device, so I see a difference between moving away from a desktop form factor to another form factor which is in fact very much the equivalent of the desktop and the other alternative implied here which is moving away from a desktop to a multitude of individually less powerful devices each of which does a portion of what the desktop does and often combines that with some new function as well or a purely Internet based device with all the problems that all devices remotely connected have suffered in some degree from Marconi to the present.

Also for many people any desktop is more powerful than they ever need if all they do is email, Facebook, and write a letter once in a blue moon so there is a community (a large one) that is out there ripe for the move to a reasonable MID. Hence the popularity of the iPhone, it does the internet connecting that is all that many people need.

But there is always going to be people like me (and more demanding than me) who will require heavy duty graphics and processing power, and as new generations of more capable computers come along our needs for even more processing power increases.

I suspect that this will be like many other revolutions and evolutions over the years. The introduction of the PC was accompanied by predictions that paper office work would disappear - the paperless office would be just around the corner. It didn't happen, in fact the disappearance of the typewriter lead to an increase in paper in the office.

Television was going to replace cinema. It didn't and now the 2 co-exist quite happily. Likewise Television didn't replace radio but instead they each had strengths for different circumstances and both seem to thrive.

I suspect there will be a great reduction in desktop/powerful laptop usage by significant portions of the population and there will be changes in the way they are designed and marketed, but I suspect they will both be with us many decades in the future and will co-exist with web based computing, MID computing, and embedded computers in virtually everything we use.

[rontowns25]

fascinating post here of web 3.0 and the future of the desktop.... http://gothamtechminute.blogspot.com/2008/04/web-30-third-coming-of-internet.html

[joshsc]

What most people fail to realize is that there are many people who have a computer that don't have any internet access. And then there are many folks who still have dial-up. This makes up about 30-40% of Americans which is still a lot. People knee deep in technology forget about these people when making these claims. It will be years before we get to point where everyone is using an online based computer- I don't forsee it happeneing in the next 10 years. I know I wouldn't use it.

[umbrae]

No one even comments on how dumb it is to have your "desktop" and all your private information spread over the internet and stored by 3rd Parties? Personally, I will take my standard desktop sitting on my encrypted partition that is available to me even when my internet is down. I would much prefer hackers trying to compromise MY MACHINE with MY PROTECTIONS; rather than relying on a 3rd Party to keep my data safe.

Domino's has the largest consumer database and they sell the information to the government and collection agencies. I'd prefer to not have my desktop icons sold off to marketers or the like.

[Renegade Knight]

I see web only as an option. I don't see it as the entire future. For one thing security and privacy are far easier to have on a standard desktop than a web desktop. Not to mention that off grid computing exists and is alive and well, even needed in some applications.

Perhaps it will be a viable option, but it will only be an option. Desktops replaced dumb terminals. Now we are evolving back to dumb terminals? That's not evolution.

[fdunn3]

This horse has been beaten to death. I trust my information on SaaS as much as I would giving keys to my house to everybody in the city. Encrypted link or not, I would rather have my storage local with an encrypted backup.
Particularly in the current time of "Approved Snooping" by the government to the telecoms meaning abuse by employees of the telecoms and the SaaS providers.

Thin clients, WordPerfect running under Netscape (1996), Blades running Lite PCs.

This horse has been beaten to death.

[DigitalFrog]

I agree with fdunn3 and others above. This is neither new nor inevitable for at least the next decade. There will always be demand for off-grid computing.

Somebody please bury this horse before it attracts flies! (namely politicians/corporations that want to push it on us whether we want it or not)