> Danny Yee wrote:
>
> By "desktop" I mean something like "what a user spends a large amount of
> time sitting in front of", though I don't include specialised stuff like
> point of sale systems and embedded controllers in cars :-).]
PC's are going to look as ridiculous as spandex pants (he says, carefully
not looking under the desk), and *won't* come back in style. The idea of
having an ugly beige box in the study will quickly wither and die as *very*
sexy 'information appliances' with good, simple user interfaces will
dominate in the family room, kitchen and, because we all like to read, the
bathroom.
Hardware will become like Unix software: small, and capably built to perform
one task brilliantly. Web pads, for instance, will dominate the use of the
web because it will be necessary to have access *everywhere*.
Consoles will replace PC's as the prime source of gaming action. I won't
mention their inevitable cross-pollination with 'set-top boxes' because TV
is crap, and in my Utopian future, the world will finally realise this and
pull the plug on the doofussy mind-monopolies that dominate The Gerber
Dinner Media (spoon fed mush).
Real Geeks (that's us, okay?) will continue to have ridiculously overpowered
machines on their desktop so they can play games, browse, use WIMP and CLI
interfaces because they can't get their heads out of the sand long enough to
realise they suck, and most importantly, run servers. Yes, whilst everyone
else will be happily browsing away on their web pads, Real Geeks (like us,
okay?) will form the backbone of community hosting - allowing small-time
users to publish on the web as easily as the big guns. This will be an
important aspect of our contribution to the wider community.
WIMP and CLI will be looked at as user interface oddities. Further
refinement of the use of computers will obselete them almost entirely. Both
will live on for Real Geeks and on workstations, but will be overkill for
the everyday computer user. Concepts such as Lifestreams, information
bundling and 'appliance-like' interfaces will change user interface design
and information management for ever. Combined with ubiquitous network
distribution, strong encryption, and direct input methods such as
handwriting recognition (not to mention speech recognition, but this
sentence is already sounding a bit far-fetched), WIMP and CLI will garner
similar reputations for user interface brilliance as switches, lights and
punched cards.
> By mid 2003 (three years away)
> * the number of Linux desktop users will pass the number of MacOS
> desktop users; at this point both systems will have around 3%
> of the desktop market.
The demise of Apple saddens me greatly. Already they've blown their
*absolute* superiority in user interface / human computer interaction design
with OS X, but if we're going to have to suffer the future without their
guidance (read: without being able to snarf their ideas), someone better
pipe up with a brlliant way of injecting some user interface cluefulness in
distributed (and of course, Free Software) projects.
> * most of the individual desktop Linux users will still be
> techies, or friends and relatives of techies. But an increasing
> number of corporations and organisations will be adopting it
> as a standard - these will mostly be largish (500+ machine)
> organisations, along with some medium-sized (100+) ones.
Big corps will flock to Linux as soon as they realise they can turn their
computers into kiosks and never have to touch the bloody things again.
Desktops suck, they know it, we know it, Microsoft know it, but just like
cars running on petrol, no one has the guts enough to fix it. Either that,
or - like Microsoft - the status quo is the status dough.
> [It may seem the wrong way around, but I think the slowest groups
> to convert to Linux will be home users and small businesses
Not if we play our considerably good cards right. What do small businesses
need? Line of business applications, and simple messaging / document
processing. What do small businessses not need? Technical worries, expensive
software and hardware, continual manual upgrades and critical,
time-consuming computer glitches.
Having worked with IT in small businesses (this is a pet interest of mine),
I can quite happily say that Linux and/or Free Software will thrive, given
the right software, people and support. Yes, it requires creativity and a
hell of a lot of understanding, but we *can* offer better solutions than the
current 'here-by-popular-default' regieme.
> : big
> organisations are slower to change but have more to gain, and when they
> do change, a lot of machines will be involved.]
And a lot of money will be saved in the process. There's a few hurdles, but
if you clear out the political prima donnas (the NT admin, the lead
programmer, the IT manager, and the bosses son, well, the one who hasn't yet
heard about Linux), it just takes better answers than the questions
management can ask.
The excellent thing is that we have the ability to say, "Yes, we *can* do
this with Free Software" without flinching anymore. Next comes, "if we
contribute to the software we use, it will get better, faster."
- Jeff
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