Outside the Box: The Keys to Computing Are on the Web
When Apple Computer Inc. announced in April that it would provide software that lets Macintosh computers switch between the Mac operating system and Microsoft Windows, the Mac faithful were split.
Some applauded the move as a way to access Windows applications they occasionally needed. Others saw it as a heretical concession to the evil empire.
The bigger meaning may be creeping irrelevance for all PC operating systems, whose functions are rapidly being subsumed by the Internet.
“We’re moving toward the ‘empty computer’ model”: a PC that draws most of its software applications, data files and music and other media from the Internet rather than its own hard drive, said David Gelernter, a computer scientist at Yale University.
He looks forward to the day when “I can unplug this PC, smash it with a sledgehammer and the effect on my digital life is zero. I can plug in a new device and tune in my whole digital world two seconds later.... My assets live on the Web.”
That vision would reconcile a computing environment populated by a huge variety of hardware gadgets, data types and media with secure, reliable access anywhere.
“It’s finally coming,” Gelernter said. “Fast.”
For longtime computer users, it’s a feeling of deja vu all over again.
Before the PC, computing was done on “dumb terminals” connected to mainframes. And some vendors have long touted the benefits of the “thin client” -- a stripped-down PC designed for corporate networks that runs applications and accesses files stored on a central server computer -- in theory saving money and support resources.
But as the PC prices dropped sharply, thin clients never gained momentum, even in major corporations. In the 1990s, Netscape Communications positioned its Navigator Web browser partly as a Windows replacement. The idea was that software applications would take advantage of Navigator’s Internet-centric services.
Netscape was crushed, and not just by Microsoft. The computing environment of the time lacked key elements to support its vision: near-ubiquitous, ultra-fast Web connections combined with a rich, proliferating crop of online software, services and media.
That day has arrived, as have Internet-connected phones, tablets, hand-held computers, game consoles and other devices whose operating systems are nearly invisible to the user. PC operating systems are losing their centrality in computing.
The ability to search and use Web-based resources is shifting computing away from the stand-alone PC experience, said Tim O’Reilly, chief executive of technology publisher O’Reilly Media. The value of a network dramatically rises as new users join -- so the rapid growth of the Internet speeds up this process, he said.
“Increasingly, the applications that matter will be network applications,” O’Reilly said.
For example, Amazon.com leads online book sales partly through the network advantages of efficiently adding reader reviews and feedback, building a database of unique information.
Eric A. Brewer, director of the Intel Research Berkeley laboratory, founded Inktomi, one of the original search-engine innovators, whose technology is used by Yahoo. He said efficiency, ease of use and data security could make the network-centric trend unstoppable.
Most communications, search and entertainment are already inherently network-based. On a PC, the user experience has become increasingly collaborative, mediated more through the browser than the operating system. The ways people link to or share documents, music and movies vastly enhance the reach of the content.
Adobe’s Portable Document Format, or PDF, for displaying text and Flash for animation dominate by keeping a consistent appearance across browsers and making the operating system incidental.
Google Maps, which shows detailed aerial views of much of the globe, is becoming a worldwide orientation system, making PC-based mapping software obsolete, O’Reilly said.
Business productivity applications are also slowly migrating online. Microsoft is moving to create Web-based versions of its Office suite, the company’s cash cow, with revenue generated by leasing the software and carrying advertising.
“What are the [Web] services that really matter to people? How will they be monetized? This is still unknown. But it’s clear that people are not going to be buying software the way they were,” O’Reilly said.
His views are buttressed by the blistering growth of ad-supported Web services from Yahoo and Google, among others.
“I look at Microsoft as analogous to IBM’s position in the personal computer industry. IBM didn’t die, but it had to totally transform itself,” O’Reilly said.
Microsoft’s Windows Live and Office Live -- Web-based services designed to augment or replace the company’s traditional software -- follow the lead of Google and Yahoo. The company is also going after Web-based revenue with its Xbox 360 game console, which offers elaborate online features by subscription.
Apple has seized the initiative in the music business by tightly integrating its online store, iPod players and personal computers without tying functionality to the Mac operating system.
“Apple has already been helped by this trend quite a bit,” Brewer said.
“As people use Web services more and their operating system less
When will people stop thinking in terms of Windows, Mac and Linux? For those who rely on Web-based e-mail, music and community sites, such as O’Reilly’s daughters, ages 23 and 27, the future is now.
“They both have laptops but often leave them home when they travel,” he said. “They know a computer of some kind will be wherever they go, and all their services are online.”
