According to one Google executive, desktop computers will be a thing of the past within the next three years.
Google Europe boss John Herlihy made the statement during a speech at the Digital Landscapes conference at UCD.
“In three years time, desktops will be irrelevant. In Japan, most research is done today on smart phones, not PCs,” Herlihy told a baffled audience, echoing comments by Google CEO Eric Schmidt at the recent GSM Association Mobile World Congress 2010 that everything the company will do going forward will be via a mobile lens, centring on the cloud, computing and connectivity.
“Mobile makes the world’s information universally accessible. Because there’s more information and because it will be hard to sift through it all, that’s why search will become more and more important. This will create new opportunities for new entrepreneurs to create new business models – ubiquity first, revenue later.”
So, do you think the desktop computer will go the way of the dodo in three years?
Over the next decade or two most people will have smart phones that will do most everything desktop computers do. This will be the real start of ubiquitous computing
While mobile will be incredibly important, it won’t replace desktops any time soon. Business are not going to turn over everything to Google.
more like 50 years at best. although i do believe the tablet pc is going to be the next wave in home and business computing
Been in I T since the first P C came out, heard this claim for years. Not going to happen, there is nothing to replace it. They also said we’d have flying cars by now.
Tim
Where are the flying cars? I was promised flying cars!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrFgRAcr0jg
Not if Blizzard has anything to say about it.
Also, Google? People do other things with their computers than look for information. I, for one, am not willing to watch things like Hulu on a dinky little phone screen (which I don’t even have yet).
If you can get computer games, with all the attendant graphics and user interfaces that we’re used to on desktops on a phone, then you *might* have a point. Personally, I like having my giant monitor to watch the action with (or surf the net, or read, or watch TV, or do anything that a 4″ screen is just too small for)
In a few decades? Perhaps. Three years? Not a snowball’s chance in hell.
Our HDTV’s will become the replacements. Already many have internet capability. Just as the telephone network has transitioned to the internet, so too will HDTV, but it requires a delivery system that is not yet in place. So maybe next century?
This may be plausable for non-gamers. Many say that they want a bigger display, and I’d add that many would want a standard keyboard and mouse as well (good luck typing as quickly on an iphone as on a PC). But these are all peripherals. Imagine a smartphone that you set in front of a wireless monitor, keyboard, and mouse, and the four all talk to each other seamlessly. You bring it to your friend’s house, or your coworker’s cube, and it just works, and you have all your documents and links and whatnot with you at all times. Would that not make for a viable alternative to a (mostly) static tower PC?
</devil’s advocate>
There goes another corporation making another prediction about computing… will they never learn…
Someone in the PC industry was heard saying “yeah, well the jerk store called, and they’re out of you!” 😉
More like Google will be dead in 3 years! Thats a fact!
While Desktop and Notebooks won’t be dead, they may be supplanted by Appliance Devices as the mainstream information access device.
There will need to be more variety of effective information appliances though, considering it’s taken 3 years for others to catch up with the iPhone, and most of that development effort can’t be scaled well to a larger device.
The iPad may still be the only game in town in three years time. Until it sees more effectual peer competition, opening up the market, consumers will still be using Desktop and Notebook computers as their primary computing device. (Tablet PCs and Netbooks are *not* Internet Appliances; they are dumbed-down PCs).
While Console Gaming won’t supplant Desktop Computer Gaming for everyone, It is the platform of choice for mainstream consumers; Gaming PCs will return to the Niche they once occupied.
The desk top most likely will be”dead’ in 3 to 5 years to 95% of people.
Most offices are starting to or currently run either on thin client services for most people and laptop for the people who need the computing power.
The home desktop will more likely morph into some kind of storage center/gaming machine/TiVo/cable box and wi-fi home base. This is tech we have now and can be easily made. it just needs to be combined and in 3-5 year this can happen
The desktop will not die for the hard core gamers, developers, programers and IT people.those 5 % will still have them and will push the development edge.
Don’t think I’m ready to trade in my 27″ HD monitor and MAC desktop for a 3″ smart phone screen just yet.
I agree with Sir Scooter.
Thin client appliances (not full fledged computers) are making a big push especially with the new ipad. I don’t care for the limitations imposed by a thin client model. Honestly I don’t think 85% America or probably the world really cares one way or another. Heck in alot of ways thin clients are easier for the average person. I’m not going to lead the band wagon, and regret that full computing devices seem to be shunned in breakthrough development, but I think internet connected thin devices are here and aren’t going away.
Here is something that I never expected upon getting my new android phone. I spend far less time in front of my desktop computer now. It’s in my pocket and I can keep up with most of my email, text, facebook, tweets, netflix, and google search on my phone.
I still spend some time surfing for stuff, but it is less than half the time I spent before. If I put a Mac Mini on my home theater, I bet that time would cut down another half.
I think he has a point, and there may be a vast majority of people out there that move the computer to the living room for entertainment, and dump the desktop for their phone.
I could be one of those people, needing a computer to for only one purpose. Printing and creating content that we put out every week.
It’s got me thinking………..
Smart Phones are great, but Google is kidding themselves if they think they’re going to replace desktops all by themselves. Google’s business model assumes that everyone is going to move all their applications, including word processing, spreadsheets and other business aps online. While a lot of people are jumping on the “smart phones will replace everything” bandwagon, there are simply some things that are not practical to do on a tiny screen. And not just games. A lot of business applications, like accounting software and architectural software, require larger screens so that the people working on them can see all the details.
We’ll see, as more portable devices like the iPad improve, an eventual squeezing out of the desktop from most people’s lives, but it’s not going to be just because of smart phones.
There are also going to be some people who are just not going to want to use their smart phones as their primary means of surfing the web or sending text. People with poor eyesight, for example.
Then there are people like me. I have larger than average hands. I don’t do much texting with my phone for one reason: My fingers are too big for the keypad. When Google figures out a way to give a smart phone an adult-sized keypad, then I’ll get on the “smart phones with replace everything” bandwagon.
No ones get my new pink desktop computer!!!!! back! back! grrrrrrrr
Darcy
I doubt PC will get replaced by mobile devices any time soon. The biggest hurdle is going to be price of bandwidth and the incompatibility between the mobile carriers.
While the Iphone and the various other smart phone platforms sell well, most people are not willing to shell out and extra $30/phone for that kind of connectivity that we hard core techies enjoy.
And, as much as I love my DROID!, Dragon Age and Mass Effect 2 look too damn good on my 27″ monitor.
“In Japan, most research is done today on smart phones, not PCs,”
I’m not sure how to read the sentence above. Are smart phones the subject of research or are they the tool?
I’ll echo others on this . . . while I don’t “game” or watch Hulu (or Hulu-like sites) on my 30″ monitor, I do like to sit and write in front of it . . . and edit photographs, and work on spreadsheets, and check out Google Earth, and many other things not suited to even the best of miniature screens. Heck, I don’t even like working on my 17″ laptop.
And that’s the crux . . . very hard to do anything but basic work on a small touchscreen. And by basic work I mean looking up a document or reference.
Besides, I’m thinking of scaling back my phone, not expanding it’s capabilities.
Now, I will grant looking up a factoid or two at the instant you think of it is sort of neat. But it is by no means essential, and unless it’s free it’s of no practical value to me.
But perhaps the guy was referring to people who live their lives within 144 character limits (or whatever it is nowadays). People whose personal worth and sense of accomplishment is derived from being in constant touch with a large virtual social circle. And people I suspect find it useful to look up restaurants, what-when-where movies are playing, what route to take to a particular gathering place . . . in other words, people not me.
I’ve now had a iTouch for a shade over a month, and not found anything useful to do on it. Sure, I can observe imagery on the latest solar flare, but mostly I waste time on it. And when I do check my e-mail on it, it’s a poor tool for replying, so I don’t bother.
Bottom line, I’m interested on a better desktop, not a replacement for it. But, I’m weird that way.
Remember in the next few years all cell phones will be working off micro USB connectors and most new TV have bluetooth capable.
In the next 3-5 year, imagine a time where you have a smart phone with the storage capability of a few terabytes and also the computer power of some of the the most advanced laptops of today.
This means any TV can be a computer and you can get any bluetooth accessories like keyboards and mice.
This, for most people, would mean the things you can do with a desktop would be done without the desktop machine.
“640K ought to be enough for antbody’ – Bill Gates (1981)
Need I say more???
This is almost as likely as the paperless office.
Has anybody seen it yet?
What about all the data entry and call center folks? I can’t imagine doing what I do and my husband does on a little phone, much less our companies buying every call center, data management, admin assistant, receptionist, a smart phone.
I have a Palm Pr? smart phone, and while it is amazing in what it can do, we are still some ways off from having these replace our desktop PCs.
I more envision a day that will be similar to what exists in Star Trek, where the smart phone will become much like the PAD. It can received downloaded information and do some limited computer work while the PC itself will continue to be the real workhorse of computing.
We do need to remember one thing. Just as smart phones will continue to evolve in their computing power, so will the PC. I seriously doubt that the smart phone will ever “leap frog” past the PC in terms of computing ability.