The end of the PC era?

[Zellio2008]

The jail broken iphones have had malware. Yes, they get it because the jail broken ones have a default root password that people do not know to change and they can download anything that they want.

Do you know how much cloud computing you are doing every day by accessing the internet? You do a search. You use databases on computers around the world to search through, you use compute power on Google's network to shift through the results for you.

Again the point of the topic of this thread is that the average PC user would be able to get everything they use their PC for on the internet, using a device like the iPad. This is not everyone, and yes there are lots of issues and concerns with various aspects like data security. A large number of people I know would never miss their PC, and in fact be happier without a maintenance headache.

You mean how much INTERNET computing I do every day? because the internet is a series of networked servers. If I had virtual software stored online then that would be considered cloud computing. I don't.

 

[mike123abc]

Yes I take a risk by having all my email on Yahoo for the past 6 years. It is quite possible they could lose it all. It is also possible someone could gain access to it. I also rely on my bank to keep my info safe.

For business I keep all the accounting information both electronically, on a cloud storage server (amazon E3, encrypted), and printed out on paper stored in a warehouse. There is a difference between business and personal. What if the accounting software company went bankrupt? I would probably have to type in a bunch of information over again and set up new software.

Again the question comes up how much irreplaceable data does the average person have? Really, for most it is photos and movies. For most it would be no different than if their house burned down. Very few people I know even make backups or do them on a regular basis. The cloud is probably safer.

If you are smart you keep your options open and worry about disaster recovery, have backups and backup plans. This is more the realm of business not personal computing.

 

[Zellio2008]

Yes I take a risk by having all my email on Yahoo for the past 6 years. It is quite possible they could lose it all. It is also possible someone could gain access to it. I also rely on my bank to keep my info safe.

For business I keep all the accounting information both electronically, on a cloud storage server (amazon E3, encrypted), and printed out on paper stored in a warehouse. There is a difference between business and personal. What if the accounting software company went bankrupt? I would probably have to type in a bunch of information over again and set up new software.

Again the question comes up how much irreplaceable data does the average person have? Really, for most it is photos and movies. For most it would be no different than if their house burned down. Very few people I know even make backups or do them on a regular basis. The cloud is probably safer.

If you are smart you keep your options open and worry about disaster recovery, have backups and backup plans. This is more the realm of business not personal computing.

You take more of a risk by having it on the cloud.

How would the cloud be safer? People should be educated on how not keeping their data safe will hurt, not expect big brother to do everything.

 

[ronjohn]

Well I do not believe that PCs will be gone within 5 years. The discussion reminds me of the HDDVD vs Blu-Ray war zone discussions(Although much more civil). Just as in the HDDVD/BR discussion, whether Iphone/Android/WebOS/Zune tablets will cause computers to be extinct or not will be decided by market forces driven in large part by consumers who would not have a clue about the technical issues being discussed in this thread.

People who want to do email and simple web surfing will not do a detailed analysis of whether an Ipad is sufficient for them. If we could correctly predict what will drive that decision for the majority of people, we would be making a lot of money in marketing instead of posting on an internet forum.

 

[diogen]

...will be decided by market forces driven in large part by consumers who would not have a clue about the technical issues being discussed in this thread.

I believe the consumers - en masse - never have a clue.
And yes, market forces will decide the outcome but driven by corporate spending instead... just like in the BD vs. HD war.

The "textbook capitalism" has nothing to do with reality for decades, I think...

Diogen.