What Microsoft really has in store for computing, 10 yrs from now
What Microsoft really has in store for computing, 10 yrs from now
I've been playing with this concept for awhile and the more I think about it, the more I realize it is the wave of next gen computing. MS has been playing with 'Smart Terminals' (also known as thin clients) for a long time, and they offer MANY advantages to the user both in business and consumer.
Imagine a day when you go to your local ISP and get your free computer. Perhaps the only thing you pay for (or rent) is the screen. As some people will accept the standard 17" LCD while the hardcore users will crave a 23" lcd.
It's not as far fetched as you might think considering all the ability of Longhorn to support remote applications natively in the OS. And rumors have slipped out that the next version of Office will support remote execution.
I see these apps saving their data in a storage space (local storage will always exist of course) on the net which would allow you to retrieve your files from any computer. Being on a server you obviously have the benefit of having your data on a ultra fast and ultra reliable Raid5 storage with backups. And considering Win 2003's 'Shadow Copy' ability to version files, you will never have to worry about losing, deleting or saving over files ever again. How many home users actually implement data backups anyways? Case in point, home users would benefit from this.
Of course wireless will exist in pretty much every populated area of the US (this has already happened in the UK) and considering the portability, wireless will be the preferred ISP for average users. Especially if/when you can have multiple devices on the connection such as your PocketPC, main PC, Xbox7 (heh), etc.
Well enough ranting, you can see where I'm going with this and perhaps I'll write up something more formal in the future. Writing about what the consumer wants but doesn't know they want it yet, is one of my favorite hobbies. In fact a couple years ago I drafted an early white paper on how to provide downloadable music to consumers in a way that will appeal to them and little did I know, Apple launches iTunes and implemented at least 1/4 of the things I had assumed were what needed to be done. Heck, maybe I need to blog about the other 3/4 I wrote about as I would love to see it implemented. (Not that Apple ripped me off, unknown to me, Apple was creating the iTunes store as I wrote the paper)