The PC Era is Over? So Sayeth This Guy....
ABCNews.com
Basically this guy sees the new Sony PS2 as the Uber-Home Entertainment computer that many folks on here have occasionally asked Apple to produce.
It sounds intreiguing...but I just don't see the desktop going away just yet. People still will do office work at home, people will still email and web surf at home at their desk. The idea of emailing on my TV seems weird to me. What do YOU guys think?
P.S. I especially liked the little blurb in the middle of the article about "Steve Job's chopping block"
Basically this guy sees the new Sony PS2 as the Uber-Home Entertainment computer that many folks on here have occasionally asked Apple to produce.
It sounds intreiguing...but I just don't see the desktop going away just yet. People still will do office work at home, people will still email and web surf at home at their desk. The idea of emailing on my TV seems weird to me. What do YOU guys think?
P.S. I especially liked the little blurb in the middle of the article about "Steve Job's chopping block"
Comments
Computer technology seems to follow a defined path for the most part.
Supercomputing power eventually reaches Workstations.
Workstation power reaches Consumer computers
It's the Trickle Down theory. Once Networking in the home becomes commonplace and Plug and Play(Rendezvous) then the new "era" will be upon us.
Consumers want more than a PS2 or Tivo box sitting on their TV. They want to be able to share resources like your typical company minus the IT Staff.
The idea is to lead consumers along this path slowly. They've been conditioned over the years to expect big heavy boxes with ungodly expansion. The Future needs to be small light and smart where devices are concerned. Once people realize there is no need for 6 DVD Burners in a house ..once they realize the power of a Network then thus a new era begins for the masses and the fun starts.
I think there may be a market for it, but not a mainstream market. Just another niche.
He is predicting that there will be no more desktop computers, only notebooks, tablets, and other appliances. It is as if he thinks portability is always the paramount design criteria. He must not realize that screen size/placement and relative keyboard position is critical to ergonomics.
I will make the exact opposite prediction. As manufacturing costs decrease, people will choose multiple, specialized machines over a single, non-ergonomic, one-size-fits-nothing design. Yes, non-portable desktop computing is here to stay.
"For the last three years in this column I've been saying that the personal computer era is essentially over."
So what, if the "PC era" basically ends in 2008, he'll say "well duh, I've been saying it's essentially over for 8 years now!"
Give me a break.
Anyway, I was under the impression, and correct me if I'm wrong, that the classical PC-consisting-of-a-box-and-a-monitor market had been saturated for the time being. With the advent of the $599 Piece-o-Crap, anyone who was going to buy a PC in the past few years had already done so and new PC sales were stuck in the upgrade cycle.
So that would leave the rest of the consuming public offline and that's where these "Other Devices" come in. Some people simply are not going to learn a new UI other than the remote. Keyboard-o-phobes, if you will.
The cycle must kick in again. Unfortunately, it's generational, so the ten year olds out there will come home and start talking about how they did so and so on the computer at school... and so on.
Or something, hell, I don't know, I'm blathering here!
Screed