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Google: Desktop PCs will be dead by 2013
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Author:  pcernie [ Thu Mar 04, 2010 11:50 pm ]
Post subject:  Google: Desktop PCs will be dead by 2013
http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/index.c ... d=3214232&

Quote:
Google believes deskptop PCs will be redundant within three years.

According to a report by Irish tech news service SiliconRepublic.com, vice-president of global ad operations John Herlihy, made the comments during speech at the Digital Landscapes conference in Dublin.

"In three years time, desktops will be irrelevant. In Japan, most research is done today on smartphones, not PCs," he said.

Herlihy's remarks echo a speech made last month by Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who announced that the search giant is focusing on mobile, not desktop search, and urged application developers to do the same.

In his keynote at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Schmidt pointed out that global sales of smartphones and other mobile devices are growing rapidly and will soon eclipse sales of conventional PCs.

There's little doubt that smartphones are already ubiquitous worldwide. According to a recent United Nations report, nearly two-thirds of all humans currently use a mobile phone, and the mobile device revolution is still in its infancy.

OK, but is the desktop really doomed? Perhaps from the perspective of Google, a search company that generates nearly all of its revenue from online advertising, the desktop may soon grow irrelevant, at least globally.

Certainly, Google's strategic focus on cloud computing and connectivity is visible in every project the company undertakes, be it online productivity apps like Google Docs or an experimental fibre broadband network.

But it's likely the conventional PC will have a longer, healthier life than Google anticipates. Big bulky desktops are disappearing, of course, but that's hardly a new development.

Smaller, lighter, and more mobile laptops will take their place, except for niche applications that require maximum, local processing power and storage.

The smartphone is great for many things, but it's no desktop-replacement device, either in the home or office.

New mobile devices, such as the Apple iPad and similar tablets, may bridge the gap between phone and desktop. And laptops will likely make new inroads in developing nations, particularly as manufacturing costs continue to fall.

Who knows? Maybe we'll eventually ditch the 'smartphone' and 'laptop' labels and just call everything a mobile device.


I like my big screen and ability to copy discs quickly from the one box, thanks ;)
Author:  cloaked_wolf [ Thu Mar 04, 2010 11:58 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Google: Desktop PCs will be dead by 2013
About 15 years ago, I envisioned everyone using personal, portable computers. Something not too far from current iPhones. Except we would have them attached to our wrists (bit like Leela in Futurama).

There's already a way of a computer reading your mind (via external electrodes) that then type what you think, so word processig wouldn't be too difficult.
Author:  Linux_User [ Fri Mar 05, 2010 1:34 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Google: Desktop PCs will be dead by 2013
What a load of crock.

The screen on my phone is far too small to do anything truly useful. I much prefer the "screen estate" of my 24" display, not to mention the gaming ability of my PC. My desktop PC has and will be my favourite vehicle for doing work - I even prefer it over the laptop.
Author:  big_D [ Fri Mar 05, 2010 5:36 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Google: Desktop PCs will be dead by 2013
Oracle said that back in the 90s...

To be honest, I think they will be correct, at least in the corporate arena.

Rolling out windows terminals or equivalents and running standard images in virtual machines on a large server are a lot easier to manage and if a machine gets corrupted, you just delete the image and reload another standard image and the user can carry on. All the machines are run on large servers with multiple redundancy - if a PSU packs in, the hot spare takes over, the disks are in a large NAS RAID, memory is ECC, multiple physical CPUs etc.

The user just needs a large screen, keyboard and mouse - possibly going over to touch and speech recognition.

Our manufacturing and accounting system is at head office. That means all the users in satellite offices spend all day using Citrix to remote into a terminal server. Trying to explain the difference between their local desktop and the Citrix desktop on their screen is difficult, they just don't understand why they, when they click on a link in an email to go to a specific entry in the system, it doesn't work... They've opened the email client on their desktop and the system runs inside Citrix! :roll:

I'm seriously considering replacing the old PCs with Windows Terminals now. It is also easier to maintain, when one of the terminals dies, I don't have to configure a new machine for them, they just pull a spare out of the cupboard and plug it in, no more 6 hour round trips to repair a broken PSU or upgrade memory.

Most home users don't do anything they couldn't do in the cloud, so a simple, cheap web browser machine would be easier for them to use and understand, less to go wrong and all of their data will be automatically backed up in the cloud.

Certain tasks, like CAD, animation etc. aren't really suited to such an environment, but a majority of day-to-day uses of computers could be off loaded.
Author:  veato [ Fri Mar 05, 2010 8:43 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Google: Desktop PCs will be dead by 2013
CAD, DTP, image editing, video editing, PC gaming, native 1080p movies, web design, etc etc. There's a lot of uses for a fully featured PC and/or decent screen size. I can see the smaller devices such as iPads and the like complementing the desktop rather than outright replacing it (for some).

Corporately though I agree desktops for the most part arent required. I'm working on something at the minute that will move over 1600 users onto thin client.

I am finding less need for a big tower full of power hungry components and would (given the finances) replace it with an all in one and portable such as iMac and iPad combo.
Author:  Amnesia10 [ Fri Mar 05, 2010 9:04 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Google: Desktop PCs will be dead by 2013
As has been said a thin client or terminal would be sufficient for all but a few tasks for corporate users. Specialist uses might be very different.

Somehow I do not see how cloud computing can work for home users when governments still threaten three strikes to internet access. These are the people who are most likely to be victim and until the law criminalises disconnections then I cant see how cloud computing for home users will take off for any but those with the simplest needs.
Author:  big_D [ Fri Mar 05, 2010 9:16 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Google: Desktop PCs will be dead by 2013
veato wrote:
CAD, DTP, image editing, video editing, PC gaming, native 1080p movies, web design, etc etc. There's a lot of uses for a fully featured PC and/or decent screen size. I can see the smaller devices such as iPads and the like complementing the desktop rather than outright replacing it (for some).

Corporately though I agree desktops for the most part arent required. I'm working on something at the minute that will move over 1600 users onto thin client.

I am finding less need for a big tower full of power hungry components and would (given the finances) replace it with an all in one and portable such as iMac and iPad combo.

It is slightly different, but have you checked out Citrix's XEN Desktop line? They demoed that at the Windows launch, the guy had a 6 year old Dell laptop, running XEN Desktop over a 3G dongle and displaying a Windows 7 desktop running HD video...
Author:  veato [ Fri Mar 05, 2010 9:32 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Google: Desktop PCs will be dead by 2013
big_D wrote:
veato wrote:
CAD, DTP, image editing, video editing, PC gaming, native 1080p movies, web design, etc etc. There's a lot of uses for a fully featured PC and/or decent screen size. I can see the smaller devices such as iPads and the like complementing the desktop rather than outright replacing it (for some).

Corporately though I agree desktops for the most part arent required. I'm working on something at the minute that will move over 1600 users onto thin client.

I am finding less need for a big tower full of power hungry components and would (given the finances) replace it with an all in one and portable such as iMac and iPad combo.

It is slightly different, but have you checked out Citrix's XEN Desktop line? They demoed that at the Windows launch, the guy had a 6 year old Dell laptop, running XEN Desktop over a 3G dongle and displaying a Windows 7 desktop running HD video...


Yeah ive done lots of work with Xen desktop. Its really good.
Author:  paulzolo [ Fri Mar 05, 2010 11:18 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Google: Desktop PCs will be dead by 2013
I doubt they will be dead - there will be a need for a desktop machine. However, the casual computer user may find devices like the iPad will be a far better thing to have. Other companies will be putting out their take on the iPad - and we truly will start to look like episodes of Star Trek.
Author:  belchingmatt [ Fri Mar 05, 2010 11:24 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Google: Desktop PCs will be dead by 2013
paulzolo wrote:
Other companies will be putting out their take on the iPad - and we truly will start to look like episodes of Star Trek.

As long as that includes the hemlines then I have no issue with that.
Author:  Amnesia10 [ Fri Mar 05, 2010 12:18 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Google: Desktop PCs will be dead by 2013
But will home users be happy that all their contents can be scanned by some company for copyright infringement or for interests so that they can target advertising at you.
Author:  forquare1 [ Fri Mar 05, 2010 6:14 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Google: Desktop PCs will be dead by 2013
As has been said, I can see corporate users using servers more than desktops soon.
At Sun everybody had a Sun Ray think client apart from anyone who needed their own machine for fast compilation, even then groups of developers were encouraged to use a Sun Ray and share a separate build server.
At the MOD everyone had C2D 2GHz machines to themselves. They didn't need that processing power to run Windows, AV and Word...And the portability was terrible compared to thin clients (your file would follow you, but open programs/windows wouldn't).
I know MS Terminal server is expensive, but companies would save a hell of a lot from shifting the majority of their users onto them. It just has so many advantages.

For home use though, not a lot can beat a standalone machine (a laptop can come close).
Author:  rustybucket [ Fri Mar 05, 2010 6:51 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Google: Desktop PCs will be dead by 2013
Quote:
Google: Desktop PCs will be dead by 2013

No they won't

I think they'll stop being an ATX monolith and become much more modular - mac mini-style.
Author:  TheHobgob [ Fri Mar 05, 2010 8:45 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Google: Desktop PCs will be dead by 2013
If screens that can be sized (pulled out etc.) are in general production by 2013 then I think they will be right, other than a few specialised users.
Author:  Coref [ Fri Mar 05, 2010 9:05 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Google: Desktop PCs will be dead by 2013
If flash disks are available for a sensible price for laptops then this might happen. The 5.4k or slower disks in are really slow. It's all about IOPS innit.
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