Friend Kevin and I were talking recently about some popular new technologies that are showing up in the workplace. One is a netbook, a light-weight laptop or portable computer that relies primarily on web services to provide you with what you need - applications, communications, and storage. Related to the netbook, is PC-as-a-Service. The same basic principle applies - all or an important part of your computing capabilities is handled by services that reside on servers inside or outside your company's data center. The overall idea is that it's difficult and expensive to maintain an operating system and the requisite applications on hundreds or thousands of employee computers. It's far more efficient to consolidate those capabilities back in the computer room or out there in the cloud.
Kevin and I found this both interesting and amusing. See, more than 20 years ago, when we worked at Digital Equipment Corporation, we managed X Windows systems that put a big monitor on the user's desk while all of the serious computing was handled by a server someplace else. (Purists may want to quibble about the use of the words client and server in the X Windows context. Quibble away.) When it was time to update the operating system or other programs or to add more storage or computing power, you took care of it in the computer room, rather than going to dozens of cubicles and performing the same task on each user's system.
Of course, then and now, a highly-reliable, high-speed network is essential. (What's the definition of a networked solution? A system that you didn't know about in a place that you never heard about is keeping you from doing what you want to do.)
For lots of people, that kind of connectivity is available at home, at work, and at their favorite coffee shop. Using the Firefox browser, I have many days when I don't need to use any desktop application. My email, calendar, task list, music, newspapers, and time-wasters are delivered by the web. Twenty years ago, we had comparable solutions, although the systems were at least 10 times more expensive and the networks were 1% of the current speeds. It makes the brain hurt to think about what the next score of years will bring.
Kevin and I found this both interesting and amusing. See, more than 20 years ago, when we worked at Digital Equipment Corporation, we managed X Windows systems that put a big monitor on the user's desk while all of the serious computing was handled by a server someplace else. (Purists may want to quibble about the use of the words client and server in the X Windows context. Quibble away.) When it was time to update the operating system or other programs or to add more storage or computing power, you took care of it in the computer room, rather than going to dozens of cubicles and performing the same task on each user's system.
Of course, then and now, a highly-reliable, high-speed network is essential. (What's the definition of a networked solution? A system that you didn't know about in a place that you never heard about is keeping you from doing what you want to do.)
For lots of people, that kind of connectivity is available at home, at work, and at their favorite coffee shop. Using the Firefox browser, I have many days when I don't need to use any desktop application. My email, calendar, task list, music, newspapers, and time-wasters are delivered by the web. Twenty years ago, we had comparable solutions, although the systems were at least 10 times more expensive and the networks were 1% of the current speeds. It makes the brain hurt to think about what the next score of years will bring.
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