Just ordered...

[Peter Korsten]

Andy Tarpinian schreef:

> My first thought is actually security, in my case some projects I am  
> under NDA so I would not trust content being streamed back and forth  
> with a third party. But in reality aren't we all using 3rd party  
> servers for our email, so I guess it's a moot point.

It's like outsourcing part of your business. What you need is trust: you 
need to be able to trust the party you're outsourcing to. If you can't 
trust them, or don't want to, it's no use.

> Rent-a-render farm, especially an automated version would indeed be  
> cool but I think there are way to many variables right now to make it  
> worth it as a buisness model. 

It's early days, but I definitely see the computer/computing business go 
back to a client/server model, but with the internet thrown in. A move 
away from generic PCs that are customised for a specific task, to 
smaller, dedicated devices that do just a few things, but do those very 
well. And store all your data on the 'net.

This is a business model that Google strongly advocates: everything they 
do (Google Apps, Android, Chrome OS that primarily targets netbooks) is 
pointing in that direction. Microsoft have been looking at this for 
several years now, but their strength lies in office environments, not 
home PCs. I don't see very dramatic changes there, except for maybe thin 
clients and applications like Word that run on a server.

But a good friend on mine is already organising his life around these 
lines. (At six feet tall, he's called "small Gert", for obvious 
reasons.) Every time we see him he's got a new smartphone, or a 
Playstation 3, and he's using his actual PC less and less. The PS3 is a 
media station, and he has a netbook that communicates over a Bluetooth 
headset, connected to his stereo, as a music player/light e-mail/web 
appliance.

And I recently got my wife a Nokia 5800 XpressMusic phone. It's aimed at 
music and stuff, but it also have wi-fi, web, GPS and e-mail. What I 
plan to do is move all her e-mail to GMail, and then she'll be able to 
access her e-mail from her office, her office at home, and her mobile 
phone (because they have wi-fi at court, where you usually waste a lot 
of time).

Anyway... I'm rambling off here, but I think this is where we're 
heading. And small devices use less power, which is going to be a major 
concern in maybe a decade.

- Peter