Desktop death is somewhat exaggerated
Summary: A stripped-down operating system, one that gives more responsibility to stripped-down applications, which can themselves use functions out of the operating system, seems like the way to go. Which is the final reason open source has an advantage.
All the computing excitement these days is on apps and the cloud.
Desktops are said to be dead.
(The 1993 version of Tombstone, starring Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer, is greatly underestimated. From Amazon.com.)
Part of this is Microsoft's fault.
The company has taken its eye off the ball, like Yahoo did in search and IBM did in PC software. It has looked at the market from its own perspective, not that of users or customers, and is paying a continuing price.
Part of this is also the fault of Linux. The continuing failures of desktop Linux, Ubuntu's inability to scale, has given Microsoft a financial respite but has also shown how uncompetitive the space remains. Monopolies may be profitable, but they're not fun.
Still, there are good reasons to believe desktop software will come back:
- Phones are evolving toward desktop power. Desktop power will mean desktop functionality in time.
- Clouds don't run themselves. You don't run a cloud off an iPhone.
- Microsoft won't stay stupid forever.
- Markets abhor a vacuum. If Microsoft does stay stupid, a true threat to its desktop ubiquity will emerge.
Ironically open source is in the best position to take advantage of these trends. That's partly because Linux, thanks to Android, has a big place in the mobile space, and a huge stake in the cloud space. It's also compatible with the desktop. No other operating environment can make this claim.
There are enormous opportunities here, and many different ways this can go. Google's Chromium might bridge the gap. Apple's iPad might replace the desktop.
What is most needed, I think, is modularity. Android smartphones have proven you can build a stripped-down, modular Linux, containing only what is needed to do a job, and succeed. A desktop needs some of those smartphone modules, but not all of them, and it also needs different ones as well.
A stripped-down operating system, one that gives more responsibility to stripped-down applications, which can themselves use functions out of the operating system, seems like the way to go.
Which is the final reason open source has an advantage. This form of development requires code transparency, which is a more important open source value than its being free, as in liberated, or free as in beer.
Who will seize this opportunity?
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Talkback
Red Hat?
But I think that the Linux desktop reached a tipping point a few years ago (around Fedora 10 / Ubuntu 8.04) where it became not only usable for most people (at long last) but also truly innovative.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 is about to be released (and thus CentOS 6 soon after), which will combine the seriousness of Red Hat with all these improvements in desktop technologies.
Couldn't it be a contender?
Even if Red Hat always say that they focus on the server, at some point the companies will realize that it makes no sense to pay those Windows/Office licenses for most of their employees.
RE: Desktop death is somewhat exaggerated
Just a thought
Linux "easy" is not iPad "easy"
I think one of the problems that keeps re-emerging in the Linux desktop space is the evaluation of "easy" for the user is relative to other Linux systems. There have been amazing strides in the last 10 years (and I have been using it since my 1994 version of slackware), but there are equally many difficulties. The one thing that is a Linux strength is a Linux/Unix weakness is the forking. It not only means software incompatibility, it hurts the user experience. Until the desktop becomes at lest MS "easy", then the average user will buy Windows to avoid the hassle. It's a shame really. All those talented programmers that work on all those Linux projects could really make desktop a reality if only they would all work on a single desktop distro. Unfortunately, the *NIX people are too political to let this happen. Where's a good dictator when you need one! Dana: Rally the troops and get everyone working on a common goal!
RE: Desktop death is somewhat exaggerated
What I can rather imagine are highly customized versions of this stable core, either for given niche markets or even for single companies/organizations. In the end, on the desktop, everybody needs "only" Firefox + OpenOffice + ... some specific stuff. Everybody would then benefit, because Red Hat does not want to cover everything but is interested on feedback on its core OS.
RE: Desktop death is somewhat exaggerated
And not even Windows or MacOS easy. You're right - Linux has made tremendous strides [i]relative to itself[/i]. But not necessarily relative to Windows or MacOS.
And I'm now convinced that no, having transparent windows is not equivalent to Aero Glass.
Aero's Glass is about more than just making the title bar and border transparent. It's so much more: I'm seeing many applications for so much more than transparency: They're actually placing controls in the transparent area and making it a functional part of the application. Google Chrome, Microsoft Office, Firefox 4 beta, Inbox2 - the list goes on.
It seems Aero Glass is really intended to be an integral, functional part of the application - not just a transparency effect to help it look pretty. It's a place to put less important controls so that the user can focus on the part of the window that's really important.
I truly don't think the Linux community truly understands [i]why[/i] Windows or MacOS work the way they do. They think that design decisions are arbitrary, and not based on reasoning or research. They think that design should take a back seat to "choice," even if it means that the user ends up being overwhelmed because there are so many choices.
Don't get me wrong - choice can be a good thing. But there is such a thing as too many choices.
RE: Desktop death is somewhat exaggerated
I think it's the legacy problem: People can't move to a new OS easily because it doesn't have first-class support for their applications.
WINE or a VM isn't first-class support: It's second-class support, and a barrier to migrating to a new OS.
I also think some of the "it's broken" claims about Windows are exaggerated. Yes, Windows has had its problems in the past, but the most recent versions of Windows have far less issues than before, and help when something happens is super easy to find.
Crippled Linux
Anyone who thinks the ipad will replace the desktop are on some really....
RE: Desktop death is somewhat exaggerated
What's needed is a UI that can let you get to all that power with the ease you now have of accessing specific Internet-linked resources with the iPad.
Android tablets and VDI
I think you'll find that although you don't run a cloud-compute infrastructure with an iPhone, with VDI technologies the iPad will more than suffice. The the coming Android tablets will too - especially if they come in slightly larger form factors with higher resolutions, which seems almost certain as competing with Apple suppliers for iPad sized displays is a losing proposition for an OEM.
Apple is rumored to have a vast server farm coming on line for a cloud effort - perhaps desktop hosting for their other devices. Maybe something else.
Canonical is going gangbusters with their Ubuntu cloud. The licensing cost for VDI Ubuntu desktops is zero, likewise Android desktops. Both of these options are both powerful, and miserly with server resources. Combine that with traditional Windows apps served as application windows on your Linux desktop until they can be ported to native Linux apps and we're off to the races. Power-miserly cloud-backed infrastructure that's painlessly backward compatible, unchained from the desktop and future capable.
Game over.
RE: Desktop death is somewhat exaggerated
The "problem" is that there are plenty of interactions that don't lend themselves to "one or more blunt fingers on a screen". Why then (you might ask) is the iPad so popular? Well the answer is there are probably an equal number (if not more) of interactions where "multitouch" is at least as good or FAR better. An small example is moving rapidly though a large amount of text, with a "PC" you must either use the "scroll wheel" or "scrollbar" neither is as fast of intuitive as the iPad's "flick" gesture (they are many orders of magnitude worse). Some of these iPad gestures can be grafted onto the "PC" (probably no coincidence that Apple's own "magic mouse" has the same "flick" gesture as the iPad, and Mac OS X's scrolling system has had the "inertia" of the iPad added when using that mouse). At present the iPad is complementary to the "PC", and (deliberately) lacks many "PC" idioms (in particular the file-system). Many of these omissions are only sustainable by the iPad's status as "PC" companion, and would need reworking before it could subsume the "PC".
But don't fall into the trap of assuming the iPad is a mere toy. If the iPad is a model for the future of computing (personally I don't see it is - in fact I don't accept the premise that computing has a "single future"; I'm more convinced that we'll see a more fractured future where different form-factors will see different UIs more tailored to their unique attributes) then that vision is incomplete. My hunch is that the iPad will remain a companion device (after all, Apple will be more than happy to sell you a Mac AND an iPad - and probably an iPhone as well).
Mouse worse than gestures for bulk text?
enough already
One day, everyone everywhere will have fast and affordable broadband - but that day is a way far off. Until that day, expensive or flaky & too-easily-interrupted internet access will never support full dependence on the cloud for the consumer, let alone the needs (legal, security, etc) of the corporate environment.
Desktops dead? you gotta be kidding me!
RE: Desktop death is somewhat exaggerated
"The sad fact is that Linux is a dead duck. Great for aficionados, but in reality, will never get off the ground."
Linux has made vast strides in the desktop market, especially for something that is free and has no real advertising. But as to never getting off the ground, it took flight long ago in the server and embedded markets.
Linux can be hard to use for those that are not too technically inclined and/or older and/or are too used to using something else. Many people just don't want to learn something else. I really don't understand why learning a new computer OS is so daunting to some people yet those same people have no problem learning anything else. Buying a new smart phone with a different interface and OS is nothing but learning to use a new PC OS is... But that is one of the issues of the current generation, the computer is still seen as some kind of voodoo by most of the population.
as big a supporter of Linux as I am and as much as I believe in open source and the ability to do what you want with said software, it still kills me that because of that Linux can not grow as fast as it could. Until the Linux community can decide on a standard way of doing things for what would be standard distributions, it will continue to grow as slow as it does now (in terms of usage at least).
An Internet Browser is a Desktop Application
death? No. Massive decline? Absolutely.
Why i's sticking with my desktop machine...
.
Of course, i'm a home user/hardware tech, and business concerns might cause corporate IT to decide differently.
.
However, i will always use a desktop/tower machine as my primary machine because i can personally repair it when it dies, personally upgrade/add hardware and generally tinker with it.
.
If i really *needed* portability, a netbook/low-end laptop would be all i'd want - probably running Linux.
RE: Desktop death is somewhat exaggerated
"A vast majority of people fail to realize that it is their behavior, not functionality that makes them reliant on the desktop."
So find me a good replacement for OneNote. And show me an online office suite with SmartArt. Or how about a TOTAL replacement for the office suite, photoshop, or even the email client - [b]not just some stripped down version??[/b]
Even the email client has lost a lot of functionality moving to the cloud. Even today, I can't do nearly as much with Gmail that I can with a desktop client. Sure, being on the cloud is nice, but it's still lacking in features.
"Running 99% in the cloud is a reality - right now."
If you never, ever have some sort of specialized needs. Which pretty much describes nobody. I'm not convinced that "most" people only use a small set of features.
"On-premise environments can't match the security or the reliability of the cloud now."
Reliability is only as strong as the weakest link. All the server uptime in the world won't fix unreliable networks.
"The browser is an infinitely smaller touch point on devices than hundreds of client/server apps."
Total crap. The browser is nearly a full-fledged OS by itself these days, and works with a large variety of languages, each with its own technical weaknesses. I've been programming long enough with them to know better.
There's more security breaches than ever before with online services. Spam often comes from fake accounts on web based email. SQL injection can hijack web services. Clickjacking can hijack web pages. Viruses that spread via disks and USB keys are becoming rare, in favor of spreading via email and web pages.
The browser has become the #1 source of attacks.
RE: Desktop death is somewhat exaggerated