Robert,
I am not proposing any reasoning, I am just stating the FACT that the new "generation" is not performing as a new generation is EXPECTED to perform (following Moor's law).
And my conclusion is that it will be harder and harder for PC to conform to the old expectations. This is called "saturation".
Everyone need a better system, I heartedly agree. But it does not necessarily mean a 500MHz CPU. I personally do not need 50 fonts for my home wordprocessing. And I am sure no one need all these almost identical fonts. And the the dancing animated paper clip in Office97 does not add any performance.
What people need is a stable system configuration process, clear hardware abstraction models, simple networking concept, smooth text scrolling, and ability just to turn PC off when it is in power down mode (without filesystem corruption). All this is so simple and do not require any more processing power to make people happy.
We do have better and better hardware, but the bloatware guys eat our lunch. With the hardware performance saturation, they will need to change their habits. And systems may be way better than today, without building $10B fabs, gamma-lithography, etc. This way is over, IMHO. |
