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ipad for reading (not just golden-age) comics
GeneYas:
--- Quote from: John C on June 13, 2010, 09:28:12 AM ---
--- Quote from: GeneYas on June 13, 2010, 08:51:15 AM ---If cloud computing takes off, it'll be the only option the industry lets us have. I'm sticking with a traditional desktop computer.
--- End quote ---
Getting off-topic, but since this is (sort off) my field, I'll quickly make the point that "the cloud" never quite takes off, nor does full-deskop computing. They wobble back and forth, because both work really well for specific jobs.
I was around for the last "cloud revolution," led by Sun. And how is Sun Microsystems doing, these days...? And the pendulum is probably due to swing back, given how annoyed people are with Facebook.
On the other hand, the Apple/iTunes route isn't the only one possible. The Android people don't have the marketshare (or the tools or discipline to produce consistently-good software), but they have the same basic structure as the iPod approach wthout the need to bottleneck everybody.
--- End quote ---
Google is still pursuing the cloud arena. Don't be shocked one day if the Microsoft office suite is gone and you are forced to use the same tools online with a monthly or yearly subscription. People want convenience and if the money starts shifting to where companies can use their size to eliminate your options, they will. Sun never got up to speed. Their office package still has serious flaws in compatibility and formatting Microsoft's proprietary formats. They are still making advancements with Google assisting. Google designed their chrome browser with cloud computing in mind. The new HTML standard is incorporating features that make cloud computing more robust. Oracle had envisioned a cloud computing future right before the bottom dropped out on personal computers and hardware in general. The computer industry will justify it as "going green". Less motherboards in the landfill makes them look like a hero. The only way to minimize software piracy is to quit selling the software. The cloud will start cheap and free until they get enough people using it. After that, bonus features and new tools for convenience will pop up at an added cost. As new versions roll out, the free portions will be fewer and the pay portions will be essential tools to have. It won't be an overnight transition. The record industry was secure for years because they controlled distribution entirely. Nobody could press a vinyl record in their home. When CD burners came along and file compression software was available, the record companies lost their stranglehold on distribution. Anybody could pirate the music. I really do think you'll see big companies shifting their focus away from you being able to do anything but run a dumb terminal.
Gene
Poztron:
--- Quote from: GeneYas on June 13, 2010, 01:59:06 PM ---Google is still pursuing the cloud arena. Don't be shocked one day if the Microsoft office suite is gone and you are forced to use the same tools online with a monthly or yearly subscription. People want convenience and if the money starts shifting to where companies can use their size to eliminate your options, they will. Sun never got up to speed. Their office package still has serious flaws in compatibility and formatting Microsoft's proprietary formats. They are still making advancements with Google assisting. Google designed their chrome browser with cloud computing in mind. The new HTML standard is incorporating features that make cloud computing more robust. Oracle had envisioned a cloud computing future right before the bottom dropped out on personal computers and hardware in general. The computer industry will justify it as "going green". Less motherboards in the landfill makes them look like a hero. The only way to minimize software piracy is to quit selling the software. The cloud will start cheap and free until they get enough people using it. After that, bonus features and new tools for convenience will pop up at an added cost. As new versions roll out, the free portions will be fewer and the pay portions will be essential tools to have. It won't be an overnight transition. The record industry was secure for years because they controlled distribution entirely. Nobody could press a vinyl record in their home. When CD burners came along and file compression software was available, the record companies lost their stranglehold on distribution. Anybody could pirate the music. I really do think you'll see big companies shifting their focus away from you being able to do anything but run a dumb terminal.
Gene
--- End quote ---
This strikes me as a highly likely scenario. Thanks for sharing it, GeneYas, OT though it may be.
Yoc:
Gene made me cry.
:'(
John C:
I half-agree, Gene. There is the obvious push by the big companies, because groups like Microsoft have realized that they've pretty much saturated the market and run out of killer features to add. The only way to get ongoing revenue is, in fact, a subscription model.
However, I see a few problems that I don't think they'll be able to iron out.
First, there's the Open Source groups. OpenOffice is annoying to use, but if it's a choice between it and the next iteration of LiveDocuments (or whatever it was called), guess which one I'll choose. And if they kill Windows, well, ReactOS is finally shaping up into something that's nearly releasable. And I can confirm that OpenOffice actually does run well enough for general use on cheapo netbooks.
Second, there are all the organizations that rely on secrecy. The Pentagon, for example, is not going to allow all its sensitive data to be intercepted during upload or copied from a server farm in another country. Hedge funds aren't going to release their plans somewhere where a guessed password loses them their advantage.
And don't forget to add in the user licenses. To serve your data to you wherever you are, they (like Facebook's Terms of Service, for example) need you to give them the right to copy and otherwise use your content however they see fit. Without that, you could technically sue them for releasing your data to any machine other than the one you uploaded to. But that also means that they own the rights to use and publish your documents without your input. Sure, they usually won't, but if you're an admiral, a day trader, or a criminal, are you going to trust that they won't make an ethical exception? Probably not.
Third, there's latency and reliability. Imagine the day traders at Goldman-Sachs using 3G Wireless for their trades instead of the dedicated NYSE line.
Along similar lines, there are also applications that simply don't make sense anywhere but your computer. Home automation, for example, can only be programmed from your machine. Dealing with that as a "cloud application" is complication for its own sake, and not a likely investment.
And last, there's competition. We don't live in IBM's world anymore, or even Intel's. Hardware is cheap to produce in just about any configuration. If desktops disappear entirely, I wouldn't be surprised to see some Chinese company producing, say, docking stations that'll connect your iPhone to your television, a keyboard, and an external hard drive to turn it into a "real" computer.
So yeah, if Microsoft, Oracle, and Google have their way, the desktop will vanish and we'll be forced to pay them monthly fees for the use of their software. But the resistance is alive and well in the same market pressures that kept picoJava microprocessors from going in your refrigerator fifteen years ago (and kept Windows 95 from being a "cloud operating system"--remember all that "the web is the desktop" propaganda?), so I'm not overly concerned.
(And notice that Microsoft isn't even taking it that seriously. Office 2007's ribbon is a desktop idea, and not web-friendly, for example, and their new file formats are designed to be usable outside of Office itself. That wouldn't make much sense, if their direction is to provide mainframe-based services where nobody would ever see their data.)
GeneYas:
--- Quote from: John C on June 14, 2010, 06:09:56 AM ---I half-agree, Gene. There is the obvious push by the big companies, because groups like Microsoft have realized that they've pretty much saturated the market and run out of killer features to add. The only way to get ongoing revenue is, in fact, a subscription model.
However, I see a few problems that I don't think they'll be able to iron out.
First, there's the Open Source groups. OpenOffice is annoying to use, but if it's a choice between it and the next iteration of LiveDocuments (or whatever it was called), guess which one I'll choose. And if they kill Windows, well, ReactOS is finally shaping up into something that's nearly releasable. And I can confirm that OpenOffice actually does run well enough for general use on cheapo netbooks.
Second, there are all the organizations that rely on secrecy. The Pentagon, for example, is not going to allow all its sensitive data to be intercepted during upload or copied from a server farm in another country. Hedge funds aren't going to release their plans somewhere where a guessed password loses them their advantage.
And don't forget to add in the user licenses. To serve your data to you wherever you are, they (like Facebook's Terms of Service, for example) need you to give them the right to copy and otherwise use your content however they see fit. Without that, you could technically sue them for releasing your data to any machine other than the one you uploaded to. But that also means that they own the rights to use and publish your documents without your input. Sure, they usually won't, but if you're an admiral, a day trader, or a criminal, are you going to trust that they won't make an ethical exception? Probably not.
Third, there's latency and reliability. Imagine the day traders at Goldman-Sachs using 3G Wireless for their trades instead of the dedicated NYSE line.
Along similar lines, there are also applications that simply don't make sense anywhere but your computer. Home automation, for example, can only be programmed from your machine. Dealing with that as a "cloud application" is complication for its own sake, and not a likely investment.
And last, there's competition. We don't live in IBM's world anymore, or even Intel's. Hardware is cheap to produce in just about any configuration. If desktops disappear entirely, I wouldn't be surprised to see some Chinese company producing, say, docking stations that'll connect your iPhone to your television, a keyboard, and an external hard drive to turn it into a "real" computer.
So yeah, if Microsoft, Oracle, and Google have their way, the desktop will vanish and we'll be forced to pay them monthly fees for the use of their software. But the resistance is alive and well in the same market pressures that kept picoJava microprocessors from going in your refrigerator fifteen years ago (and kept Windows 95 from being a "cloud operating system"--remember all that "the web is the desktop" propaganda?), so I'm not overly concerned.
(And notice that Microsoft isn't even taking it that seriously. Office 2007's ribbon is a desktop idea, and not web-friendly, for example, and their new file formats are designed to be usable outside of Office itself. That wouldn't make much sense, if their direction is to provide mainframe-based services where nobody would ever see their data.)
--- End quote ---
I'll address a few issues as to why I believe what I believe.
I think that as the consumer base shifts to a cloud system, the prices on hardware and a normal desktop or laptop will increase drastically to the point that your open source developer won't have an audience for his work and your average consumer won't be able to afford the hardware to run it. Less consumer demand means hardware manufacturer's won't be able to make money on volume. Prices will have to increase. Chip manufacturers and hardware manufacturers will quit catering to the PC market. The cost of dumb terminals will stay low and companies will make money on subscriptions and apps for these dumb devices. The defense department will be able to afford a secure system. Some of this will fall into goals the government has for homeland security anyway. The video game industry has been driving the hardware advancements for years. You don't need a terabyte of space to store a word document. As more complex task become available remotely and hand held devices become the way people communicate... the convenience of those dumb devices will change people's priorities. Also, I believe a state government... possible California is shifting to gmail anyway. Google developed an Outlook plugin or service so that businesses and governments don't need to run a mail server. It cuts their IT costs tremendously. Google is going after the business you or I would assume is impossible to get. They are winning people over by showing them cost savings. Is it wise? Hell no, but it's cheaper.
Gene
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