| 1 |
On Sunday 31 December 2006 16:02, Uwe Thiem wrote: |
| 2 |
> On 31 December 2006 15:40, Mick wrote: |
| 3 |
> > The PC centric desktop on which M$ built their business model may be |
| 4 |
> > under threat. If the WebOS [1], GoogleOS [2], internet based desktop |
| 5 |
> > [3], etc. take off, then what will enable Gentoo to become a predominant |
| 6 |
> > system of choice both in the server and in the thin client markets? I |
| 7 |
> > don't think that Redmond will have much of a problem packaging a ROM |
| 8 |
> > embedded version of a thin client system and pushing it to all the |
| 9 |
> > Joe-public out there, who currently (mostly) blindly buy their products. |
| 10 |
> > Inertia may of course lead to their demise if they continue to market the |
| 11 |
> > individual desktop PC solution, but I wouldn't count on it. |
| 12 |
> |
| 13 |
> This won't happen for various reasons. |
| 14 |
> |
| 15 |
> In the business world, the main reason is security. Who will trust |
| 16 |
> an "Internet Desktop Provider" with their internal documents? |
| 17 |
|
| 18 |
The same people who are trusting a multitude of outsourcing companies with |
| 19 |
their HR, Payroll, logistics, IT management and support, procurement, |
| 20 |
marketing, public relations, project delivery, . . . , you get the drift. I |
| 21 |
wouldn't trust them any more than you do, but in the world of hollow |
| 22 |
corporations there are a multitude of companies out there who would trust |
| 23 |
nearly anybody to "take this problem away". |
| 24 |
|
| 25 |
> In the world of home computing, there are actually two main reasons. The |
| 26 |
> first is porn. |
| 27 |
|
| 28 |
Why does porn need to stored locally?! |
| 29 |
|
| 30 |
> The second is nearly photo-realistic games. |
| 31 |
|
| 32 |
Of course. That is I think one area where a thin client will not be able to |
| 33 |
compete with a modern desktop PC. I don't play games and haven't seen what |
| 34 |
sort of latency a game played through FreeNX can achieve. On the other hand |
| 35 |
future gaming may be left to games consoles? |
| 36 |
|
| 37 |
> Another, not that important, reason is that there are vast areas in the |
| 38 |
> world where bandwidth is insufficient and far too expensive for it. |
| 39 |
|
| 40 |
Indeed, although most of these vast areas are sparsely populated and some of |
| 41 |
them are wired up as we speak - a friend who visited China 3 years ago |
| 42 |
mentioned that the gov't was laying yellow fibre-optic cables right across |
| 43 |
the country. |
| 44 |
-- |
| 45 |
Regards, |
| 46 |
Mick |
Archives