Is There Still Hope Left in the Future of the PC?

[theoldgrumpybear]

Fun to see peeps here talk about desktops in the enterprise. The near future of the enterprise should (can't use will since I do not control the future) go virtual. Clients being renderers of the OS run on servers (yes a new version of client server but so is the "cloud" actually). The desktops have no HD's no USB slots to infect the network etc. Where ever you log on you get your desktop, yada yada yada. You either have seen it and get it or have not seen it and should.

 

[DSpider]

Does anyone care what processor and how much memory is in an iPad? Do people care that Apple's notebooks do not come with Intel's fastest processors? Exactly.

Yeah, well, I care about how much memory's installed. I have an iPod touch 2G and Apple stopped supporting it with iOS 4.2.1 (which runs like crap, btw - I think they intentionally made it that way so you rush off to get a new one).

Faster processor on a laptop, maybe. But then again I'm a Linux user and I know you can make it run on potatoes and such... So when OS X Hyena (or whatever) comes out and it won't cut it, I know Linux will be an option.

 

[maestintaolius]

[citation][nom]davewolfgang[/nom]2280's - The desktop PC is dead because......???[/citation]
The crab people will have killed all the humans. And everyone knows crab people don't use PCs.

 

[pita]

The traditional desktop/notebook computers are overqualified for what vast amount of people do on the computing devices nowadays. There are always gonna be a place for traditional PCs and ultra portable devices focusing on media consumption are here to stay for a long time to come.

 

[DSpider]

More than half of PC's will be notebooks, you say? Then those people are morons. I see this all the time. They buy a laptop and use it at home, plugged in. Then when it breaks down instead of replacing just one (ONE) component, they buy a new laptop instead because you can't easily find replacement parts - especially after a few years - and if (IF you do), it definitely won't be cheap.

Keeping it plugged in also wears out the battery (most people don't know that) and after 6 months they wonder why it can only hold a charge for 30 minutes. Well, duh! They wanna stay mobile they say... yeah. Once a month when they visit a friend and once a year when they're on vacation. Then there's the toilet web surfing...

Puh-leeease. I'd rather have a full-blown PC, thank you very much. Video card fried you say? Replace it. Monitor starts acting up? Replace it. Power source? No problem. An iPod touch (or an Android phone) is as mobile as you can get. Full HTML is basically all you need now.


PS: If you down vote this it means I hit the right spot with you and I would recommend you shove your laptop up your... nose?

 

[kingius]

The PC is going to outlast some of Toms' writers, clearly!

 

[marraco]

Did you really tried to use a laptop/table for long times?

It is faaar, faar from anything ergonomic.

You can't work with it. forcing you to use the screen and input system on the same place, just don't make sense, because human arms are far from human viewpoint line.

If you really try to work with a laptop/tablet, you get tired very fast, get headaches, neck pain, and a cite with the doctor.

 

[modinn]

[citation][nom]theoldgrumpybear[/nom]Fun to see peeps here talk about desktops in the enterprise. The near future of the enterprise should (can't use will since I do not control the future) go virtual. Clients being renderers of the OS run on servers (yes a new version of client server but so is the "cloud" actually). The desktops have no HD's no USB slots to infect the network etc. Where ever you log on you get your desktop, yada yada yada. You either have seen it and get it or have not seen it and should. [/citation]

Until America wants to update its networking infrastructure to South Korean or Eastern Europe standards, cloud enterprise networking cannot work outside of a Campus LAN or elsewhere in the US or Western Europe. Seeing as how Comcast and the like control the communications industry through district provisioning, I don't see that happening anytime soon either. (Although I secretly pray for it)

 

[dgingeri]

[citation][nom]theoldgrumpybear[/nom]Fun to see peeps here talk about desktops in the enterprise. The near future of the enterprise should (can't use will since I do not control the future) go virtual. Clients being renderers of the OS run on servers (yes a new version of client server but so is the "cloud" actually). The desktops have no HD's no USB slots to infect the network etc. Where ever you log on you get your desktop, yada yada yada. You either have seen it and get it or have not seen it and should. [/citation]

As a competent computer support person, I absolutely hate this idea. While such a plan would decrease the time spent troubleshooting problems and fixing things, (a virus or malware infection would just prompt a brand new replacement virtual machine, reducing the time spent on troubleshooting significantly) it also means most other support people, those not so competent, would just use the easiest route and replace the VM for every problem. (It's mostly done this way today, where many incompetent help desk people will tell users to reboot and call back if the problem persists. That is really, really annoying from my angle, and probably from the users' angle.)

It also means the most incompetent people will probably keep their jobs and the most competent people will get a cut in pay and basically punished for doing their jobs properly by managers who just don't understand what the whole support environment is supposed to be. Many managers just want to save money, and rarely reward people who actually do support right. The end result is basically the same as Dell's current retail support system: people call in to a help desk staffed by people who barely speak English, the VM gets replaced, if the problem doesn't go away they just blame the user and move on to their next problem without anything actually getting done and the user loses tons of time having to reconfigure their VM to their liking again.

This was actually done before with Citrix Remote servers and clients a little while back, and bombed. It bombed because the support people hated it. I'm not so sure we'll be able to keep it from happening again. I certainly hope we will.

 

[ivan_chess]

I wonder if the author hen-pecked this article out on his iPad?

 

[seller417]

ill always buy a PC...and apparantly im not alone

 

[cadder]

I think tablets will continue to evolved and get more powerful, but for now only a small percentage of people will use them instead of a PC. Tablet evolution and voice control might help tablets to take over more, if they ever get powerful enough, but for now most people will still want keyboards and bigger screens to work with.

OTOH I think the home PC market will continue to evolve towards laptops or desktop all-in-one PC's. I built myself a new home PC a couple of years ago. It is very fast, but severe overkill for what I typically do at home. The past week my PC is disconnected because of a home painting project so I've been using my laptop. It works reasonably well but I still work faster with a mouse. For the past couple of years my wife has used her small laptop exclusively, and her desktop PC just sits there. She even uses a mouse all the time with her laptop. I thought about switching entirely to a laptop and not using a desktop at all but for now the desktop is more convenient to what I do most of the time.

At work I will always be needing a powerful desktop computer with as much screen real estate as I can fit on my desk. The software that we use will always be requiring as much hardware as we can possibly get, and that level of hardware will never fit in a laptop.

 

[davewolfgang]

The crab people will have killed all the humans. And everyone knows crab people don't use PCs.

Noooo...it will be the Apes!! Haven't you seen the movie(s) yet??

 

[K-zon]

To say most of whats probably in the article of the direction the topic is in, hasnt probably been a backbone for interest of the idea, is probably any guess, right?

Otherwise, i feel the article pretains more to the fact, of service agreements, patents, trademarks, copyrights, money, market shares, availible resources for more open releases. On a highlight of extended efforts in some area or another to say different of one part, or many parts or them all. Given place next to what arguements are presented. And what additional areas of unknown is placed within it all. Right?

Give or take a few things.

 

[spookyman]

The problem is that there are more then one kind of device I can connect to the internet. At one time a computer was the only way to get online. That has changed in the past 5 years. You have Cellphones, TV's, Video Game devices, Tablets, appliances and more. Do I really need to use a computer today in its current form? Only use a computer has today is glorified word process and printing. Beyond that its useless.

 

[Guest]

I think Thunderbolt or LightPeak or whatever will ultimately end the era of discrete cable types. As SSDs get bigger & cheaper, they will ultimately kill off the internal hard drive, and the hard drive interface. Maybe touchscreen monitors will take off, though who really wants a smudged-up monitor?

 

[-Fran-]

Once Kinnect-like tech (censorial?) stops sucking as an input device, PCs will be at the spot light again. As simple as that.

I agree with Mr Gruener on that: input is king. With more complex input schemas, more powerful processing is in order (yes, they have a co-relation and current portable tech is not enough). Damn, I think we could double productivity with another input mechanism (brain waving?).

I'm still waiting for full body interaction (at least) with computers and not only stupid simple gestures and movement: I want to wink and make the computer knows what I'm telling it to do! Where are the goddamn AI's to interact with also? xD!

Cheers!

 

[JOSHSKORN]

The PC will never die. Stop saying it's dying. Tablets will die. 3-D will die. Consoles will probably die, to be honest before PCs do.

 

[drwho1]

I will always use PC no matter what the market says, I have build my own always to MY liking and that's the way it is always going to be.

 

[hoofhearted]

I think tablets are capturing the mainstream folks out there. Once they get hooked on then tired of Angry Birds, then they will want something more powerful and gratifying. Hell, think back years ago when many of us were content with Doom over an IPX network.

Why not a pair of wireless gloves with unique motions sensors at each digit? You could have a mouse and keyboard, they just wouldn't connect to anything.

 

[azgard]

[citation][nom]hangfirew8[/nom]Corporate IT likes desktops, because they are easier to chain to the desk and less desirable to steal. Yes, laptops have Kensington locks, but can still be stripped with a screwdriver, while a PC requires the lock tab at the back to be cut.Desktops do not lock the IT department into a cloud, web 2.0, thin client, etc. solution, but can do them all, as well as their own local apps. That versatility is unmatched.Wired ethernet is easier to secure.Programmers, even web, cloud, and mobile programmers, still need big monitors and real keyboards, as do graphics designers and engineers and CAD operators.The PC (call it workstation of whatever) is here to stay, it will just be a smaller slice of the pie, instead of the whole pie.[/citation]

I agree with this. My job actually exemplifies it pretty good. Our engineer's all use PC's since, as you stated do need the real estate on the screen. Our sale's guy however use's a laptop with a docking station, this gives him access to a traditional PC setup, with the ability to keep a mobile workstation for sales trips. All employees are further connected to a NAS box that stores all of our files. We aren't looking at a future where something is being replaced by something else, we just now have the ability to more effectively design hardware to fit the needs of the end user.

 

[christop]

I need the power of a desktop. My laptop is way slow compared to my desktop. I think it will be a long time before a laptop or tablet will ever come close to a killer desktop.

 

[liveonc]

Share some of that thin client goodness & virtual computing for these multi-core basement servers so that Crysis, Farmville, Youtube, & Media Centers all have a place at home, in the basement, where it's cold, unseen.

 

[Guest]

Its not a question of the PC disappearing but the need for a workplace that can afford that people sit in one place all day, accomplishing whatever they can accomplish in that one place, sitting in that one place all day.

The globalization of production and processes, and the reduction of the need for physical proximity to design and decision centers is leading us to a different way of working.

The difficulties of tablets to do some kinds of work means that that kind of work will still be done as it traditionally has been done.

But the ease of transportation of the data, information and knowledge used in performing other tasks through the use of a tablet and their roles in acquisition of other human and machine inputs means that tablets will vastly expand in those areas.

I wouldn't want to WRITE a novel, or even a message as long as this, on a tablet. But READING it is something entirely different.

 

[tmax]

PC hardware is so far ahead of software that there is little need to upgrade or to purchase a new system. My PC is 2.5 years old. I want to build a new PC but there is no application that my PC cannot run well.