Gee, that's a surprise.
And purely by coincedence, it directly benfits Google's "cloud".
Wow, who would have thought?
Google's European sales chief says that desktop PCs will be "irrelevant" in three years. This week, as reported by Silicon Republic, Google Europe boss John Herlihy told a "baffled" conference audience that very soon the smartphone will completely eclipse the desktop. "In three years time, desktops will be irrelevant," he said …
"In three years time, desktops will be irrelevant," he said. "In Japan, most research is done today on smart phones, not PCs."
So why my friend working at a robotics lab in Tokyo is not allowed to use his mobile device during business hours? He must be using an abacus to replace his PC....
Ok, I'm posting this from Japan. A quick 360 degrees look and I see about 50 people happily tapping into desktop PCs. Nobody is using a smartphone. Could be because I'm at work and not on a train.
Somebody just shut this flake up.
Instead of making PCs irrelevant, why doesn't google work on some real 2013 technology promise and build a damn flying car? Kthxbye.
We have over 1800 desktops which are used alongside smartphones (presumably because it is easier to use both than one or the other). Clearly this idiot thinks that computers only ever use the google website, and dont do other work. Unless they invent a smartphone with a 17 inch screen and a keyboard and an effective touchscreen and then let you use it somewhere you wont be interrupted...like a desk or summat.... wait, that makes it a desktop!
what a nob.
Expecting "cloud computing" to eliminate personal computers is a pipe dream, and it isn't tobacco they are smoking in that pipe! There is a place for the cloud, but only as a supplement to localized data processing. As soon as you have handed your "company jewels" over to another party to manage, you are at their mercy. There are applications where it makes a huge amount of sense, and there are others where it is totally absurd! I do sensitive consulting work for a number of clients ranging from small law offices to major corporations. Asking me to trust some of this data to the "cloud" is asking me to abrogate my responsibilities to my clients because there is no way that I can assure them that no one else has access to their data. With the security processes I have in place, I can assure them of that currently with a reasonable level of confidence.
Ok, eventually sure, my desktop pc will become a handheld doodad with several terabytes of data and tons of cpu and all the 3D rendering power needed to create the next blockbuster film at 4K resolution with tons of special effects. But in three years? Really? My desktop PC has 5TB of storage and less then 600GB of free space. It takes hours on my desktop PC with every core pegged to encode HD videos that I've edited/recorded. I'll be doing all that on my phone in three years? And I suppose Macs will ship with BluRay and the iPhone app store will allow bikini applications then too?
Mobile computing may not be for everyone (eg security issues) but a lot of people can already use their phone as a remote control device. Your 5TB could easily become 10TB at a click, and you allow the remote machine (or 10) to do the number crunching/encoding etc. Again not for everyone, but he is talking about most, not all. He may have a point as mobile connection speeds and screen res. improve.
... you forgot you'll need even more processing power now to deal with HD 3D, I seriously don't want a phone with all that capacity and power sitting that close to my knackers.
Google clearly have the head up their own cloud!
(Reg, we seriously need a 'Do be Evil' Google icon)
Lets see the Google coding staff do all their stuff on a 3.5" screen. I've got twin 22" widescreens at work, and three 19" TFTs at home. Still not enough, as far as I'm concerned.
And then there's the question of input. I always buy phones with a keyboard, but I've yet to find one that makes it relatively easy to get at things like {braces}.
I *love* my smartphones, but God almighty, doing everything on them? No.
Google does not want the carriers to become dumb bitshifters.
Google does not act to make the carriers dumb bitshifters.
Google however, has no intention to prevent the carriers from becoming dumb bitshifters because of being terminally dumb in the first place.
The carriers have designed themselves into a corner with a delusional service architecture that is not and cannot be competitive versus the like of Google. They have spent the last 10 years in the 3GPP (and a bit of time in the mobile ip groups in the IETF) to ensure that they have an architecture that is not competitive in the long term.
And now they reap what they saw.
That is the only place where Google is being adamant as far as its strategy of dealing with fixed and mobile carriers is concerned - they shall reap what they have sawn. If they have created networks which cannot deliver a competitive service offering it is not Google's fault and they shall not use any form of anticompetitive behaviour to prevent google from doing so. Plain and simple.
One word for Google - bollocks. Until I can have a spare internet connection to access this "cloud", me having a spare PC will always trump that. If my PC goes boom, I take another out of the closet and I'm going again in minutes. If my internet connection goes boom.... I'm well and truly fucked if I'm using a "cloud" based system. Given the way internet is provided in the countries I've worked in so far (UK, France, Canada, Japan, USA), having a truly reliable backup internet service would be prohibitively costly, even if it was possible - which it often isn't.
"Cloud based" is just another way of saying "remote terminal to large, remote mainframe over which I have no control". Way to bring us back to the 1960s and 70's.
the same prediction in the mid 1990's.
Sure the internet in a hell of a lot faster now and we don't have to wait up all night just to see half a woman. However I still think that highly publicised cloud outages, hacks, and a general mistrust of big corporation man will still prevent enough people wanting to dump all their private information onto a server run by someone else.
A step back in time to the day when computing meant a connection to a central mainframe has already occurred with the likes of Citrix. I have never worked anywhere where people say, ooh good it's a Citrix environment. Usually the response is a dull moan followed by synchronised visits to the coffee machine when it all goes wrong.
"In three years time, desktops will be irrelevant..."
This must rank close to the "We sell crap" comment by Gerald Ratner that brought about the downfall of the Ratner Jewellery chain of business. One of the factors that make Google such an influential player in IT is their clarity of vision (possibly perceived) backed by an intelligent (again possibly perceived) team.
John Herlihy might be endowed with the above mentioned qualities but he must have been immersed in his own sales and marketing hype for far too long (an we all KNOW sales and marketing is mainly vapourware and BS - please don't even bother defending this statement). It is idiotic comments like this that precede the downfall of giants.
Let's try this: "In three years time, Google will be irrelevant."
I'm really starting to get sick of Google, streetview, cloud, excessive hubris. I really look forward to ditching my workstation with two 24" monitors so I can design circuit boards on a phone? FFS! My phone is a 1999 Samsung clam type. I use to make and receive calls. I plan my trips before I go, so don't need a bloody "smart phone". A smartphone btw is nothing more than a toy, smart refers to the marketing hype that gets trendies to pay for things that in all honesty the don't really need.
We need an antiGoogle icon, the evil empire is not just Gates and Jobs.
...It'll be Google that is irrelevant in three years time.
I can see that computers will continue to become smaller and more mobile, with the big suitcase-style base unit disappearing and being replaced by a laptop, netbook (not in the office) or by a super-mini low power machine like a Mac Mini or the Dell Zino. Bigger, power hungry highly configurable desktop hardware will become more of a niche. But the desktop computer in all its forms will be alive and well for a long time to come.
biggest load of crap since adobe said "our flash plugin has no vulnerabilities".
secretaries typing up reports - on hand held device ? no
CAD people designing buildings - on hand held device ? no
web/graphic designers - on hand held device ? no
storemen updating stock records - on hand held device ? no
etc...
3 years! Just close enough (i.e. one depreciation cycle) to make people pay attention, yet far enough away that in three years it'll have been forgotten (a bit like telling your boss the project only needs another "couple of weeks"). No doubt in 3 years time, someone else will cough up the same forecast again - for another 3 years.
What does worry me is all these Japanese trying to do research (presuming they don't mean the kind of research on websites like www.dirtysmuttypiccies.com (oooh, the name's available .... excuse me for a few minutes)) on a screen the size of a postage stamp. It's intuitively obvious that a persons creativity is proportional to the amount of information and context they have to hand. That NEEDS large screens, not beermats. On a 3x2 screen the overheads and interrupts from having to scroll all over the place is crippling. So if that's what the Japs are doing, we can say goodbye to any more innovations from them.
I believe it's what used to be referred to as the "Ellison Hypothesis" before he got treatment and stopped shouting at the bins about how the PC was dead and the network computer was going to take over the world...
"Nurse! Thorazine for Mr. Herlihy, please! No, the BIG syringe that we got from the equestrian vet..."
What planet do these 'tards live on? Things must be lagging in the cloud world if they have to keep talking it up like this.
My data is MINE.. I keep it close to ME.. I don't trust the likes of Google or Microsoft or any other abusive mega-corp to look after it for me, and that extends to any data I am responsible for processing/storing. As for working exclusively on a smart-phone - clearly this guy has far to little REAL work to do during the day if he thinks that really is a viable alternative.
I think Googles Plan is to have a dumb terminal smart phone (oxymoron ahoy I know) that pulls processing power from 'THE CLOUD!!!?!?' - couple that with a pico projector built in to the phone and a small bluetooth keyboard and they could be onto a winner.
That would suffice most people as a desktop replacement, it wouldnt do for us tech nerds obviously - once you've enjoyed the pleasures of dual screens you just dont go back.
If a roman scout didn't return I think you would find out why, by maybe sending more, or the sending the legion. No commander is stupid enough to think. "hmmmm scout dead, must be really safe in that direction." If you must use an analogy use a proper one.
As long as people play games on Pc's the desktop will rule, laptops can't cut it and mobile games are not exactly fantastic. That is until a console can match a Pc which is sadly not going to happen anytime soon.
Imagine an office environment of people sitting at their desks typing on their mobile. As if.
Another Google employee proving he is a moron.
My phone is obsolete, and yet packs a reasonable amount of processing power (2 x 200MHz processors IIRC). There are plenty of 1GHz plus phones now. In three years' time phones might well be able to crunch numbers hard enough to do video editing, transcoding etc. pretty respectably.
The tiny screens and nasty little keyboards aren't a real problem; it's just a matter of getting the phones to chat to 'real' human interface devices when they're in their 'desktop' roles and fall back on dinky screens and small or missing keyboards on the move.
Even storage capacity probably isn't an issue. Given the history of microcomputers I suspect in three years' time we'll have at least hundreds of gigs of space on the move, and again the phone could have extra storage when 'docked' at home or work.
I would have thought, though, that if anything this reduces the need for cloudiness. Access to all my data anywhere? No probs, carrying my computer in my pocket.
I can easily imagine a smartphone with this sort of power. It would be a home PC, car PC and work PC in one pocket-sized package and I personally fully expect that to happen. I'm less confident about the three year time scale, but computers do keep surprising me.
In three years' time, I'm pretty sure I'll still own at least one 'desktop-sized' PC, but I doubt it'll be on my desk. More likely tucked away in a rack somewhere providing additional storage and processing resources.
"Here’s an analogy – the Roman legions used to send out scouts in different directions," he said. "If a scout didn’t return, the army didn’t head in that direction."
Um, if you were looking for the enemy you would head in that direction really quickly. This infers that Google learnt its tactics from Monty Python's The Holy Grail - "run away, run away"
... a pad that can work independently, but can be dropped into a cradle with keyboard, mouse and screens attached, which works a lot like a PC.
I think that you can already see some of this happening in netbook space. I was surprise how well my EeePC 701 worked with a normal keyboard, mouse and screen attached. Looked like a normal computer!
Eric Raymond posted about exactly this just recently:
How smartphones will disrupt PC's: http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=1759
Basically, in a few years if you add a keyboard and monitor to your smartphone you'll have a platform that's good for 90% of the uses of a PC, with useable interfaces, but with the advantages that you can just unplug it and use it as a normal phone as you do now.
Lets face it. Nexus One, 1Ghz processor, 4Gb hard disk, 0.25Gb RAM. This was a reasonable PC not long ago. It runs googleearth, java apps and web browsers just fine.
I'm sure it's not too hard to attach a bluetooth keyboard to a device like this, and if it could power a full sized display, we're pretty much there.
The man would need to smell what he's spouting then. Storage is a big issue here. I can fill up 4GB real easy with my camera. Smartphone just ain't gonna cut it. If what you're saying is the usual "read emails and internet shop" tripe then we're already at that stage so why am I using a desktop not a smartphone with 24" monitor connection and keyboard now? Doesn't happen. Why? No demand. Burn a Blu-Ray or DVD off my smartphone? Nope.
Frankly that is what I would like. Rather than having multiple devices I would rather just use my phone. On the move it does as it does now. At a desk it wirelessly connects to a LAN, full keyboard and monitor. The only issue I would have is timescales. I can't see 3 years being realistic for the processing power on the phone to make this happen. Currently my phone has 32Gb in storage and my home laptop 50Gb so I don't see the amount of storage (for data you actually need to take with you and potentially use offline) being an issue.
The other way that smartphones are and will continue to be disruptive is the growth now (short term), and the continued growth due to upgrades. Business - life of computer 3-5 years? Home - life of computer 4-6 years? Phones - upgraded every 1-2 years max. Thats a lot of kit, and a lot of potential sales. Where else is explosive growth (money) going to come from? Not from people who already have a computer and want to tweak it, it's new users. I know lots of kids (even some of my own) aged 10-18 who all have a phone, but they don't have their own computer. But they will soon . . . .
Desktop computers are here to stay - the office email server or file server though may be on its way out.
Not all applications will make it into the cloud but some will make sense and go that way, the idea of having an IT department or support team to run mundane services in house though will be a joke for all but the largest firms.
That will happen because it reduces cost and increases reliability - the idea of using a smartphone instead of a desktop does neither.
Yes.. the good old Romans. If they sent a scout "over there" and it didn't come back, they didn't investigate at all. Which is why they were always being ambushed from behind.
If only they'd gone "over there" a bit they might have had a really successful Empire that lasted a really long time.
Oh wait, more Gollocks.
play crysis?
And I'm no expert on military tactics (but I am a bit of an armchair general, RTW anyone? :-) )
but if the Roman army were looking for the enemy and the scout they sent west failed to return, surely they would want to know why and march (or at least send an Alea of cavalry auxilia) in that direction?
I think it is more that google will be in decline in three years! Or should I say I hope they are in decline. All it took was google doesn't care about privacy for me to start switching people to Bing and taking anything google related off their PCs. And I am sure I am not the only person switching people from google. That privacy statement made me regret several years of setting people's start page to google, actually not regret but pissed me right off!
And most writing is now done using spanners, not pens
Most cooking is now done in the refrigerator, not the oven.
Most driving is now done in tuna fish, not cars
Most pavements are made out ice cream, not tarmac
See? It's fun to make up crazy bullshit.
I have two laptops at home, and a work laptop. This means I can work, the kid can do homework and the missus can type up her dissertation.
Now, theoretically, a turbo-charged phone could do all those things, but, we'd need three cradles, three keyboards, three mice, three screens.. and presumably three desks to sit at. Can't wait until the two youngest kids are old enough to want a computer to do homework too...
Or, we can have three laptops.
We could all be fooled of course by a massive increase in capacity and an accompanying improvement in voice recognition. If my phone would reliably hold my 62GB of files (not counting the other few TBs I have semi-archived) and give me keyboard and mouse type access to that information on a 22" monitor, I would switch in a second. If it all cost less than $500 of course. Sounds to me like this guy is like one of those Roman scouts who went off in some weird direction and was never seen again.
"ubiquity first, revenue later"
I don't hold that the desktop will become irrelevant preferring the Apple's model of "whatever machine your on you can access your data" type model.
In other words we won't be aiming for a PC each but for an iPhone, iPad, MacBook (Pro), iMac/Mac Pro each and for these to wi-fi easily-peasily to wifi devices and (provided the Apple make good use of a little bit of its 80 billion reserve) to a reasonable decent Apple TV box.
Seemplz!
Tseetch?
"In Japan, most research is done today on smart phones, not PCs."
Perhaps his comment could mean research conducted into the advancement of smart phones, not quite as the (only) working tools of the researchers?
Far be it from me to defend the Goosple according to this disciple, but I think people have jumped too fast to one interpretation of his comments when we could all have used a similar phrase.
I also believe we should be worried less about the hardware device - even if the Googleplex ponies up a contender - and more about the company's objectives for services, data aggregation, content control, privacy, etc.
Google is again off the rails, thing is in three years the domestic / desktop computer will be a lot faster have a docking mechanism for the phones but stiil be desktops, why, well have you tried really typing a letter on a phone, seeing the screen in bright sunshine, and so on. I reckon yes you will be able to converse easily with your home computer but I cannot see an easily knickable bit of kit with all your bank stuff, letters photos etc being carted around. Its caled google dreaming, your house machine will control your heating, your electricity and much much more. I can see many older people not being able to see the screen, the keyboard and so on and therefore they will not buy it.
Nah stop googling and get real.
The desktop is not going to die, just the jerks who wish it will. We'll all have desktops for waaaaayyyyy longer than 3 years time because I collect them and either strip them or get them working for other people or myself. My wife hates me bringing all this stuff home but she put's up with it for the aforementioned "higher purpose". Catch ya. Eat this
Wow - the amount of people missing the point is staggering. He's not suggesting you actually run all this stuff on a phone. He's suggesting you would use a phone or similar portable device to connect to the cloud where all your data and applications would be running in a thin client like way.
It's debatable whether anyone would go for this kind of set up of course. Although if people are stupid enough to think he means you'll be running Final Cut Pro on your phone they might be stupid enough to sign up for such a service.