"There is at least one point that you can not deny ... an NC will always be less expensive than a PC."
Without trying to split hairs, I actually do deny this point. Here's the reason -- there seems to be no rigorous definition of the terms "NC" and "PC". I can certainly buy a PC for less than the $700 or so that IBM wants to charge. Granted, that PC doesn't have as powerful a CPU, but I raise this point primarily to illustrate the shades of grey that have crept into the entire industry's discussion of the "NC".
If you go back to when the NC concept was first floated by the current crop of NC zealots, it was going to cost $200 or so, not have a disk, and not even have a screen (plugs into the TV!). It has evolved (devolved?) into something which exists primarily to give Ellison and McNealy and Clark/Barksdale a chance to challenge Microsoft's dominance in software via selling InterOffice, or Java, or Netscape as more of the OS, or whatever.
Okay -- ignore the up-front cost, let's move onto the other argument everyone makes for the NC -- lower total cost of usage since more administration will be done at the server. I accept this argument. And on the surface, it's powerfully seductive. But I don't understand what has changed since the time of the X-terminal -- which had as its primary selling points the same arguments. The truth is that in a chaotic world those that can adapt the fastest win -- and the more power you can get at your desktop the more adaptable you can be. There will always be a tug of war between the "jack booted thugs" of centralized IS and the individual corporate user -- but I'd note that the individual corporate user has in the past and will continue to find ways to get the equipment they need to be successful in their jobs.
Finally, and on a small point, I don't know of that many companies that lay 100 megaBIT lines to each of its workers, let alone 100 megabyte lines -- many companies are still struggling to get their 10 megabit lines running correctly. It should be interesting to see all of these so-called "secretaries" who are the target of the NC get these 100 megabit and higher lines while the "power users" stay where they are. The costs of upgrading the companies to 100 megabits (which I think has to happen eventually) makes the networking infrastructure companies much more interesting to me than the NC companies (although the infrastructure companies have a very high valuation these days).
Thanks,
Mark |
