RIP Mobile Computing?
April 11, 2013
I have been shocked by the number of experts and poobahs who have pronounced, “The PC is dead.” I am not sure, despite the numbers, graphs, charts, and pompous lingo “proving” that a decades old business sector is a goner. Oscar Wilde, as I recall, observed:
A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.
I haven’t seen anyone die from a shift in the desktop computer sector.
I tackle the death of the PC in my April Information Today column, which will run in May 2013. But I want to highlight what seems to be a subordinate assertion tagged on to the “death of the PC” mini-trend.
Mobile computing is also dead. Ah, you did not know that? I admit that I did not know it and I just don’t believe it. Navigate to “Mobile” Computing No Longer Exists.” Now this is probably not dead as meant when someone says “My career is dead” or “My parakeet is dead.” But the notion of “not existing” is an attention grabber in my physical book, which has not yet been killed by bits and bytes.
The point of the write up is, in my view, is that Google is synonymous with the future of online work, play, joy, sorrow, and various “existential” aspects of modern life. I am okay with this type of assertion. What causes amusement is:
The reason our phones, tablets and PCs are increasingly interchangeable is that the services we depend on aren’t running on them at all. They’re running on the cloud. More and more, our devices don’t store our data, handle our security or share—directly at least—with our friends and colleagues. As time goes on, the highest aspiration of most of our devices—be they phone, notebook, smart watch or face-based computer—will be as fast and responsive local caches—copies, that is—of our cloud-based existence. In this cloud-based world, the question becomes, what is “mobile” computing? If it’s just a name we give to screens that are small enough to carry around, it’s not a terribly useful distinction.
The author seems to be leap frogging the grim reality of life in the real world. For example, it will be a few years before the magic of cloud computing will work as forecast in Patagonia, on the bridge at Victoria Falls, or in my work room. I have to go upstairs and sit in the south east corner of my home to get a T Mobile connection.
The real world of government contract requirements, work on certain legal matters, almost any activity related to pharmaceutical research and mergers and acquisitions require desktop computers, often deployed in small, tightly controlled workgroups or locked in a room with no Internet connection, and access passwords provided to specific individuals. There are many other examples of desktop computing remaining relevant. In some of these real world situations, mobile computing is not supported. For example, at one meeting at a Los Angeles law enforcement agency, weapons and anything which connected to the outside world were locked in an anteroom.
I know that for many folks the world of Googley connectivity is just super wonderful. However, even at companies like Google, the real world of traditional computing is very much evident.
Net net: Mobile computing is not dead. Pervasive connectivity is not yet the norm in certain work situations. Desktop computing, as I suggest in my for fee column, is very much alive. Traditional computing does not discard the methods of the past for some very good reasons. Prognostications are fascinating. Some are offered without much in the way of check ins with the real world of today and the world which will arrive tomorrow. Mainframes are still in operation and I was told those were dead decades ago.
Stephen E Arnold, April 11, 2013
Sponsored by Augmentext
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One Response to “RIP Mobile Computing?”
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I think a distinction has to be made. Between content consumption and creation.
For content consumption the PC is irrelevant, I can check email, browse etc on my mobile device.
When I need to create something new and need to compile my code I still need a PC