<<All I know is that in 5 years we will be doing things differntly than we are today. Will Windows 9x or NT still be around?>>
Windows 9x certainly won't be around, but maybe Windows 0x will =) Sorry, I couldn't resist.
More seriously, I believe that while the NC will be popular for certain users, it will not completely take over the market. The idea of having terminals is not new, but the present technology makes it much nicer. Still, freedom associated with having your own computer unaccessable by others cannot be ignored, and will not be ignored by many industries. The NC will thrive in several areas:
1) College & University computer labs
2) Retail (to access account information, special order items, etc.) - businesses that now use wintels but are better suited for NC's (i.e. Midas)
3) Informational systems: Airlines, credit card accounts, etc. Right now these companies are either using wintels or very old dos or unix based terminals.
4) Corporate intranets for communication, but independent of the personal computer work that requires more power.
I guess that if the questions of local storage and security are answered, the PC could be completely replaced. However, when the network goes down, nobody can do any work instead of just one person's computer crashing.
Just my thoughts.... -Dylan |
