On Thursday 03 July 2003 02:23 pm, you wrote:
> This promotion of Linux by the world's largest consumer electronics
> companies and broad rejection of microsoft WinCE is some serious
> business. It may be the start of the "next big thing" that could get the
> IT industry working again.
>
<snip>
> are starting me to question whether Linux winning on the desktop is
> important or even relevant.
>
> Will a new generation of advanced consumer electronics running Linux
> make desktop computers (and microsoft's monopoly) obsolete. What if the
> current depressed personal computer market never recovers because people
> start buying other kinds of devices instead. It could happen. This isn't
> all pie-in-the-sky. Look at the IBM lab URLs.
In my experience this will NEVER happen, because a computer is not used to
primarily to control things. They already deliver many functions in one
box. I'd never want to go back to a dedicated wordprocessor f. ex.
It's much easier for game developers to write software than having to also
build, AND SELL, hardware to play it.
How would I program? Write letters, do financial progressions etc? Not on
dedicated machines that's for sure! If anything we'll get more
functionality built into the computer, like remote controls. It will have
increasingly more power and capacity. Not less.
The computer industry will always have customers to serve. It cannot die due
to slow sales. It can only reshape with new market leaders. Look at Dell,
up some 30% compared to last year and back as the top seller over HP.
For this industry to go away I see only two options which makes them
redundant. One we go out over the top and become so spiritually advanced a
computer have nothing to offer. Or, we go out through the bottom with a Mad
Max kind of society which blows itself up and has no electricity.
Personally I don't see either happening very soon. : )
--Steve ______________________________________ This sig is pending approval
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