Swept Away By the Next Computing Wave
Posted in: Internet Use/New Technologies at 08/01/2011 20:39
If the deluge of tablet announcements coming out of the giant Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas shows one thing, it is that the next wave of computing has finally started to form. If this new wave is about to break then -- to over-extend the metaphor -- which companies will ride it and which risk being swept away?
Computer historians talk about four previous waves of computing: the mainframe, the mini-computer, workstations and the PC.
While probably fewer than half of the tablets announced will ever see the light of day, they are an indicator that the tide has changed; the PC-dominated world is beginning to draw back, and the next wave -- the fifth and one based on the twin appeals of mobile devices and cloud infrastructure -- is starting to build.
To read this Wall Street Journal report in full, see:
blogs.wsj.com/tech-europe/2011/01/07/swept-away-by-the-next-computing-wave/
Also see:
Arm deal 'will end Microsoft and Intel's dominance'
Microsoft's decision to make its new operating system run on Arm chips will leave it playing catch-up in the growing tablet computer market, says analyst
"Unthinkable," said Horace Dedlu, a former manager at Nokia. "These actions confirm the end of the PC era." Steve Ballmer, the head of Microsoft, had just told the giant Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas that the next version of its Windows operating system, used on about 90% of the world's PCs, would run on chips made by the British company Arm.
Great news then for the British company, whose shares spiked, and Ballmer also presented it as good for Microsoft, whose products are used by a billion people around the world.
www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/jan/07/microsoft-arm-deal-for-windows-analysis
