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.
It's hard to remember the last time I bought a desktop computer. Sometime back in the stone age, I suppose, when vendors still bundled the machines with CRT screens.
(Credit:
CNET.News)
My back-of-the-envelope tally of friends and colleagues turns up the same taste trend. Few say they plan to spend money on desktops any more. Those who do say it's because they need the bigger computer for serious gaming applications. I hang with a crowd of early adaptors, but it's not just the predilections of the double soy nonfat latte crowd. Now the statistics are starting to bear out the anecdotal evidence.
One of the big surprises out of Intel's second quarter numbers is that for the first time, demand for notebook processors outstripped the company's product sales for desktop machines. Everyone expected this would happen one day, but the future just got here a lot faster than most folks--including Intel--ever assumed.
And that occurred even without big sales of Atom processors, which Intel debuted in the second quarter. These chips are geared for what Intel describes as Internet-centric "netbook" and "nettop" alternatives to current notebooks and desktops. Truth be told, though, it's still not clear how much impact Atom will have. Witness CEO Paul Otellini's seeming putdown of his own product: "(Atom) is less than a third the performance of our Centrino (processor). You're dealing with something that most of us wouldn't use," he said.
But enough computer shoppers, here and abroad, will be buying increasing numbers of these and other notebook computers. The second-quarter news Intel reported about notebook sales was not an anomaly. The trend will continue until the popularity of notebooks get eclipsed by even smaller devices. None of this suggests that the curtain is about to close on the era of big desktop PCs imminently. But "Let's get small" has become more than just a mantra for the future. It's now the present.
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