Tuesday, October 11, 2005
Thin Clients or Fat Servers?
SiliconValleyWatcher.com
Tom Foremski of SiliconValleyWatcher reports that the ever-growing market for more powerful PC's maybe threatened by the increasing ablity to provide the same services online from some distant large computer system. This would make it possible to buy cheaper less powerful microprocessors for home computing that would simply connect to a broadband connection linking the home or office to massive computing power on demand. Not only are the software titans like Microsoft threatened by the service on demand model but the hardware manufacturers as well will be scrambling to adjust their plans for future production. According to Tom Foremski:
People would spend less on buying fancy computer and expensive software and instead sign up for suscription services or even free services offering the same kinds of computing power and software packages. The implications of this transformation could be enormous in terms of the narrowing the global digital divide, according to Foremski:
Foremski's predictions are cliearly optimistic and somewhat utopian, but he is very persuasive and the evidence does seem to make his predictions seem plausible. Clearly the price of entry into this delivery system could still be substantial even if the barriers of expensive pc's and software are eliminated. Broadband for all is a major sticking point here. It is not clear that every nation state would permit their population to have access to that kind of information infrastructure that this dream requires even if it were economically possible. Certainly it would be a major shift in control of the digital world away from the microsofts and manufacturers and towards the portals and search monsters.
What are the distopian possiblities of this move to fat servers and thin clients. Is big brother a fat server? Does increasing centralization of computing power mean a concentration of control and surveillance power as well? Will everyone wish to have all of their files stored in central data bases or let these online providers search our hard drives so that the programs we are using will work? Thin clients could be easily controlled by fat servers in ways that independent computing power could avoid. There is room for much speculation here.
Tom Foremski of SiliconValleyWatcher reports that the ever-growing market for more powerful PC's maybe threatened by the increasing ablity to provide the same services online from some distant large computer system. This would make it possible to buy cheaper less powerful microprocessors for home computing that would simply connect to a broadband connection linking the home or office to massive computing power on demand. Not only are the software titans like Microsoft threatened by the service on demand model but the hardware manufacturers as well will be scrambling to adjust their plans for future production. According to Tom Foremski:
This trend is being enabled by companies such as Google, Yahoo, Ebay, MSFT, IBM, and the large telcos; all are building massive aggregations of computer power to support the large web based commercial/collaborative applications companies are using.
Increased broadband access also helps this trend as large computer centers suck in more data packets, process them, and kick them back out--faster than a PC could.
We will all timeshare a big computer in the ether(net) and we already do much of the time now (Google). It's back to 1965 and Doug Engelbart.
The PC of the near future, just needs to decrypt and render pixels and audio bits--jobs done very well by inexpensive multimedia graphics chips, much cheaper than a general purpose microprocessor.
People would spend less on buying fancy computer and expensive software and instead sign up for suscription services or even free services offering the same kinds of computing power and software packages. The implications of this transformation could be enormous in terms of the narrowing the global digital divide, according to Foremski:
Importantly, PCs/notebooks/mobile phones would be affordable to huge populations that otherwise wouldn't be able to get online for decades.
Think how such a computer architecture model could accelerate global development?
As opposed to the current attempts to slash PC prices by making ever more powerful and complex PC microprocessors.
We can get to the promised land of digital experiences for all, all the time--much faster with this type of computer architecture.
The graphics/audio processor then becomes the key chip. It has to handle the sights and sounds of a PC at lightning speeds.
Similarly, make the PC OS/browser simpler, not more complex.
Of course, in such a scenario I am assuming we have ubiquitous broadband access anytime, all the time, anywhere. Which we know will happen. And so will the rest. imho. :-)
Foremski's predictions are cliearly optimistic and somewhat utopian, but he is very persuasive and the evidence does seem to make his predictions seem plausible. Clearly the price of entry into this delivery system could still be substantial even if the barriers of expensive pc's and software are eliminated. Broadband for all is a major sticking point here. It is not clear that every nation state would permit their population to have access to that kind of information infrastructure that this dream requires even if it were economically possible. Certainly it would be a major shift in control of the digital world away from the microsofts and manufacturers and towards the portals and search monsters.
What are the distopian possiblities of this move to fat servers and thin clients. Is big brother a fat server? Does increasing centralization of computing power mean a concentration of control and surveillance power as well? Will everyone wish to have all of their files stored in central data bases or let these online providers search our hard drives so that the programs we are using will work? Thin clients could be easily controlled by fat servers in ways that independent computing power could avoid. There is room for much speculation here.
