Why the Desktop Is Dying

For the moment the desktops are continuing to gain power, performance and innovative capabilities like additional security and virtualization, but some think that the times of desktops for all is near its end and in future tiny network terminals that cost a few dollars will replace conventional desktop PCs that are continuing to shrink their retail price.

?To survive, PC makers will keep cutting costs. But how much lower can they go? Sure, they can squeeze suppliers and redesign plastic casings until both are as thin as tissue paper. At some point, however, they'll have to start discarding entire subsystems. First to go will be the optical drive. Flash memory will be a cheaper and more flexible medium for any data you want to store or transfer locally. Next goes the hard drive: Network storage will be abundant, and the bandwidth to move vast amounts of data will be cheaper than ever. Then PCs will lose the CPU, replacing it with a cheap processor that just shuttles data between the network and the screen, with all the computing taking place in distant server farms. Sun already offers a stripped-down terminal like this, the Sun Ray, but given the company's lack of experience in selling PCs, I doubt that it will be the dominant supplier of such machines when they become the primary computing platform,?suggests and article over Business 2.0 web-site.

?To be sure, there will still be some personal computers around. Engineers and creative professionals may still require high-powered workstations, and road warriors will still likely tote laptops, though they may shrink so much as to be indistinguishable from cell phones,?the story by Owen Thomas concludes.

• Business 2.0: Why the Desktop Is Dying.