Towards the Web-based Desktop

By:James Hayes

It might have seemed unbelievable quite a few years ago, but today, most serious computer users work on two or more PCs. Some people use an office and a home PC, others an office and laptop PC while others have a desktop PC at home and a laptop to accompany them at travels. A similar pattern can also be seen in other consumer products, such as cars, where the general purpose family car has been replaced by more specialized models such as an SUV and a roadster weekend-drive.

This new reality in computing is bound to bring major changes into the way we work and also regarding the demands we have from our PCs. First of all, networking is no longer just a useful feature. It is a very basic requirement and the absence of it is unjustifiable. It is so easy and cheap for computers to communicate with each others, that even if one needs to transfer one file per week, networking is worth it. Moreover, the Internet is now as important as office applications such as MS Office and it would be pointless to have a stand-alone PC while it's so easy for many machines to share a single network connection.

The second change deals with the synchronization issues of data on multiple machines. It would be nice if every file and every setting that we create on one machine is automatically and securely passed on all other machines that we use as well. Imagine for example, adding a new e-mail address on you PC. It would sure be convenient if that e-mail address could also be added on the PC you use at work and on your PDA. How about adding a web page on your Favorites? The same synchronization issues occur, and although it has been promised many times in the past, total synchronization is far from automatic, and people who actually achieve it have spent long hours trying to make it work.

However, the set seems to be changing and we should prepare ourselves for a greater change. If all that we did were not even stored on a PC but somewhere on the Internet, then we could have access to our desktop, wherever we were, whatever PC we were using, ours or someone else's. If all my MS Office documents, media files and settings were available like this and accessed by a username and a password then any PC could become my 100% Personal Computer. Of course, the idea of web applications through thin clients is not new. But today two major issues make it more feasible than ever before. First of all, there exists an infrastructure for fast and cheap Internet connections available in most places. And second, there exists the need for it, through the use of multiple PCs by the same user. And for every day that passes, the need grows stronger and the infrastructure gets better. It is therefore no surprise that Microsoft has started Windows Live and it should be expected, that Google will undertake a similar effort that may, in the end, completely change the use of PCs as we know it.

Finally, the added benefit of the "everything on the Web" approach is that the cost of a basic PC would radically drop and soon, Nicholas Negroponte's $100 dollar PC might be considered an expensive one! With such reduced cost, we could start seeing PCs embedded in cars and cell phones. And of course, nobody can predict where an even bigger wave of spreading PC use might lead to. In other words, we seem to live in a world that continuously creates opportunities for those who love technology or work in the hi-tech sector.

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