Are PC applications set to die out?
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Hi, I use Chrome as my default browser and it just added some nice advertising on the home page: Google ChromeBook[^] Which is absolutely great to get unwanted advertising spam :) However, this makes one think - are PC apps going to be around in 10 years time? If I look at the mobile market, more development goes into doing apps and mobile websites than PC desktop applications. Everyone wants an "app" or at least a mobile site to interact with employees and customers. So are PC apps going to be a museum pieces soon? (ps. I can image my two year old son leaving University to 20 years time saying, you used to work on one one those? :omg: ) Cheers.
Yes. If it is up to microsoft, we will all be cloud computing by windows 10. If you notice windows 7 is rapidly moving the user to the cloud. They removed windows explorer so you have limited tools to maintain your local drives. They enhanced their web browser so you can barely tell if you are on your machine or in the cloud. They have nearly stopped development on C and C++ tools for the PC. Since they still own the PC space, they are moving users off the PC as quickly as they can. There will always be a place for the PC, just like there is still a place for mainframes. It just won't be where the masses are dumping their money. I don't own microsoft stock. I do own google and amazon stock. stevev
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Hi, I use Chrome as my default browser and it just added some nice advertising on the home page: Google ChromeBook[^] Which is absolutely great to get unwanted advertising spam :) However, this makes one think - are PC apps going to be around in 10 years time? If I look at the mobile market, more development goes into doing apps and mobile websites than PC desktop applications. Everyone wants an "app" or at least a mobile site to interact with employees and customers. So are PC apps going to be a museum pieces soon? (ps. I can image my two year old son leaving University to 20 years time saying, you used to work on one one those? :omg: ) Cheers.
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Yes. If it is up to microsoft, we will all be cloud computing by windows 10. If you notice windows 7 is rapidly moving the user to the cloud. They removed windows explorer so you have limited tools to maintain your local drives. They enhanced their web browser so you can barely tell if you are on your machine or in the cloud. They have nearly stopped development on C and C++ tools for the PC. Since they still own the PC space, they are moving users off the PC as quickly as they can. There will always be a place for the PC, just like there is still a place for mainframes. It just won't be where the masses are dumping their money. I don't own microsoft stock. I do own google and amazon stock. stevev
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The "app" will still run on your PC. Can you (realisticly) imagine every keystroke being sent to the "cloud" before it updates your word document ...?
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Hmmm ... yes ... creating "content" on little itty-bitty screens with litty-itty keyboards ... If you don't know better, you will buy into it. I feel sad for america. I'm glad I'm too old to see the end.
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Hi, I use Chrome as my default browser and it just added some nice advertising on the home page: Google ChromeBook[^] Which is absolutely great to get unwanted advertising spam :) However, this makes one think - are PC apps going to be around in 10 years time? If I look at the mobile market, more development goes into doing apps and mobile websites than PC desktop applications. Everyone wants an "app" or at least a mobile site to interact with employees and customers. So are PC apps going to be a museum pieces soon? (ps. I can image my two year old son leaving University to 20 years time saying, you used to work on one one those? :omg: ) Cheers.
I think there is a lot of development around mobile apps at the moment because it is new, not necessarily better. The convenience of mobile access has to be weighed against the limitations of those devices. My stockbroker offers an app with which you can look at some charts and trade on the move. Nice idea but the mobile app is crap compared to the advanced charts you can use on the pc, which uses java webstart so it's not tied to a particular pc. There is no way I could do anything substantial on a tiny mobile screen, assuming I can even read it, so I do need a laptop with a decent screen size, mouse and proper keyboard for that and for other things. Local processing power is a bonus as is the ability to keep some stuff local and decide what, if anything, you want to put on the cloud.
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Hi, I use Chrome as my default browser and it just added some nice advertising on the home page: Google ChromeBook[^] Which is absolutely great to get unwanted advertising spam :) However, this makes one think - are PC apps going to be around in 10 years time? If I look at the mobile market, more development goes into doing apps and mobile websites than PC desktop applications. Everyone wants an "app" or at least a mobile site to interact with employees and customers. So are PC apps going to be a museum pieces soon? (ps. I can image my two year old son leaving University to 20 years time saying, you used to work on one one those? :omg: ) Cheers.
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Hi, I use Chrome as my default browser and it just added some nice advertising on the home page: Google ChromeBook[^] Which is absolutely great to get unwanted advertising spam :) However, this makes one think - are PC apps going to be around in 10 years time? If I look at the mobile market, more development goes into doing apps and mobile websites than PC desktop applications. Everyone wants an "app" or at least a mobile site to interact with employees and customers. So are PC apps going to be a museum pieces soon? (ps. I can image my two year old son leaving University to 20 years time saying, you used to work on one one those? :omg: ) Cheers.
I think we are long ways from being 100% web because we still have a fundamental problem while reaching the web: The distance. Like it or not, best case scenario, data travels at the speed of light and they don't travel in a straight line. And distance means time for data traveling from one point to the other. Add to that band limitations on different locations (This is an infrastructure problem that can be solved). Desktop application can process everything locally, where distance is not a problem. The best example of applications that will be the last to move to the web (if they move at all), are the heavy 3D games. Imagine playing crysis and render heavy 3D frames on a browser or having 30 high quality images being downloaded in one second, using a remote data source: Completely nonviable for the near future. Since today's mid range desktops/laptops can handle most applications to make heavy processing locally very fast, many applications are not very suitable for the web. Having a powerful server farm to process heavy loads of data make sense on specific scenarios only. The great advantage of the web is the ability to host distributed applications that are easy to deploy for every user in a centralized way. But there are many applications that don't need to be distributed and as such, make more sense to stay local. I honestly don't see desktop applications vanish completely. But I do realize that this whole paradigm of desktop vs web apps might not even make sense in the future. It takes a lot of thinking to theorize what things might be 20 to 40 years from now.
"To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems" - Homer Simpson
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Maybe. The app will be downloaded, used and then killed. The data will be cached locally,uploaded and then killed. The app will probably run in some sort of p-code that would be supported on any platform, It would not be a PC app. ...sound familiar?
Then, we'd still need a local interpreter that would be a PC app. I'd also want to see when running an application this way would work for apps like 3D Studio Max... I think we are long ways to go before that is even viable, let alone effective.
"To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems" - Homer Simpson
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Hmmm ... yes ... creating "content" on little itty-bitty screens with litty-itty keyboards ... If you don't know better, you will buy into it. I feel sad for america. I'm glad I'm too old to see the end.
I think the end is as predictable as the Armageddon. If it ever occurs. I'm more into a new beginning, when none of this debate will even make sense.
"To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems" - Homer Simpson
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Any body remmember the Network PC? anyone? come on I can't be the only one!! (stands tapping foot) OK maybe I am the only one (least I didnt buy one)
You cant outrun the world, but there is no harm in getting a head start Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.
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Hi, I use Chrome as my default browser and it just added some nice advertising on the home page: Google ChromeBook[^] Which is absolutely great to get unwanted advertising spam :) However, this makes one think - are PC apps going to be around in 10 years time? If I look at the mobile market, more development goes into doing apps and mobile websites than PC desktop applications. Everyone wants an "app" or at least a mobile site to interact with employees and customers. So are PC apps going to be a museum pieces soon? (ps. I can image my two year old son leaving University to 20 years time saying, you used to work on one one those? :omg: ) Cheers.
I do, in fact, think the age of the pc "app" is waning. With advances like HTML 5, I don't see the need for the kind of app that you have to physically install on your machine. I can see a model where an interpreter is downloaded and you can run the app and then kill all the processes associated.
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Hi, I use Chrome as my default browser and it just added some nice advertising on the home page: Google ChromeBook[^] Which is absolutely great to get unwanted advertising spam :) However, this makes one think - are PC apps going to be around in 10 years time? If I look at the mobile market, more development goes into doing apps and mobile websites than PC desktop applications. Everyone wants an "app" or at least a mobile site to interact with employees and customers. So are PC apps going to be a museum pieces soon? (ps. I can image my two year old son leaving University to 20 years time saying, you used to work on one one those? :omg: ) Cheers.
Lots of impressive web apps and web services coming out with HTML5. This is not going to stop. As a developer I still prefer my notebook real estate and desktop apps. I have used some pretty impressive web tools to do simple projects with though. I suspect that the desktop apps will become less frequent and more special purpose over the next 10 years. Maybe something like the DOS to GUI shift. I still use DOS for some special purposes I don't have and app for. Some installation packages and other utilities still use DOS as components. Some types of users, especially in business/office settings, may be hard to accommodate. For example, accountants and clerks who still need to pound on the keys to be most productive. They will have to have a lot different concept of their jobs to accommodate a web app and touchscreens. I am still a bit of a skeptic on the shift to the cloud. This was tried before (in part at least) and was called ASP (Application Service Provider). It tanked after a couple of years of marketing hype. Some companies I know lost truckloads of cash over it. Previous to that it was called a Data Center. That tanked also. Maybe the cloud will succeed because it is built on better technology by smarter people and the users are more capable/conditioned to adopt it. The security vulnerabilities with the cloud are still poorly handled, IMO. There is a lot more work to do there before I will be recommending the cloud as a first choice to my users. Some new technology ideas are needed. I read of more and more hacking on anything that is mobile each day. For now I am treating the cloud as a vehicle for special purpose apps. For example, Sales Management, Support Management, and other less critical supporting systems. Maybe I am too conservative, but ...
"Courtesy is the product of a mature, disciplined mind ... ridicule is lack of the same - DPM"
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Hi, I use Chrome as my default browser and it just added some nice advertising on the home page: Google ChromeBook[^] Which is absolutely great to get unwanted advertising spam :) However, this makes one think - are PC apps going to be around in 10 years time? If I look at the mobile market, more development goes into doing apps and mobile websites than PC desktop applications. Everyone wants an "app" or at least a mobile site to interact with employees and customers. So are PC apps going to be a museum pieces soon? (ps. I can image my two year old son leaving University to 20 years time saying, you used to work on one one those? :omg: ) Cheers.
RichardS wrote:
Are PC applications set to die out?
I hear this question every year. It's based on the "idea" from "management" that things that are old are being replaced with something new.
RichardS wrote:
So are PC apps going to be a museum pieces soon?
No. Visual Studio 2012 and World of Warcraft will not run on your mobile phone. No, those aren't even related platforms, they only compete in the eyes of management. No, you cannot have Sql Server Express on your android. ..and no, the iPad isn't going to replace any thin-clients soon - just like the Elsa logboard didn't do that, ten years ago.
Bastard Programmer from Hell :suss:
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Hi, I use Chrome as my default browser and it just added some nice advertising on the home page: Google ChromeBook[^] Which is absolutely great to get unwanted advertising spam :) However, this makes one think - are PC apps going to be around in 10 years time? If I look at the mobile market, more development goes into doing apps and mobile websites than PC desktop applications. Everyone wants an "app" or at least a mobile site to interact with employees and customers. So are PC apps going to be a museum pieces soon? (ps. I can image my two year old son leaving University to 20 years time saying, you used to work on one one those? :omg: ) Cheers.
It depends on what the PC is being used for. We use the PC to monitor smog per appropriate federal and state regs. Cant have an Internet connection due to security, so cloud computing is out. An 'app' couldn't do this.
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Hi, I use Chrome as my default browser and it just added some nice advertising on the home page: Google ChromeBook[^] Which is absolutely great to get unwanted advertising spam :) However, this makes one think - are PC apps going to be around in 10 years time? If I look at the mobile market, more development goes into doing apps and mobile websites than PC desktop applications. Everyone wants an "app" or at least a mobile site to interact with employees and customers. So are PC apps going to be a museum pieces soon? (ps. I can image my two year old son leaving University to 20 years time saying, you used to work on one one those? :omg: ) Cheers.
This is really two questions: 1) PC vs. mobile device 2) Cloud/web vs. local application The first is being transformed by the invention of much more useful, mobile devices. But the transformation is mostly being misunderstood, in my opinion. The shift is toward mobile devices because those make new things possible. What mobile devices do not do well, unless you count laptops, is the regular office work that most people spend a great deal of their time doing: Excel, Word, PowerPoint, etc., or email or basically anything that involves much typing, or that could benefit from more monitor space. Which means the "Desktop PC is going away" theme in the news is silly. It is simply handing over a certain portion of its space, along with ceding some space that never existed before in the market, to mobile devices. Does this reduce the market size? Perhaps. Eliminate it or gut it entirely? No way. The second is at a really interesting spot right now, though I haven't seen anyone take note of it, because everyone tends to forget anything that happened more than 5 minutes ago. This is really just the latest iteration of a cycle that we've gone around many times already in the short time that computers have existed. ChromeOS is the same idea as the Java Computer is the same idea as the mainframe terminal. Local interface to a centralized computer. Every few years, as different pieces of of the technology ecosystem advance, and certain trends burn themselves out, "the future" shifts one year toward powerful clients, and then another back toward thin clients with a powerful server. That's because there are real, legitimate advantages to both ways of doing things, and people don't like thinking of a complex system of some things done one way and some things done another, everyone seems to like to think that there is some "one way" that is best for everything. Consider, in favor of localized applications: -Data privacy. -Speed of doing things locally rather than transmitting to a distant resource, and along with this the idea of not wasting the possibility of doing some processing locally. -No bottleneck of performance based on bandwidth. -Local control and configuration and customization. -Centralized servers are doing all of everyone's work and therefore need to scale to gigantic proportions, with the risk of not keeping up with demand. -No central point of large-scale failure: in the cloud, "my Excel isn't working right today" is replaced by "the whole country's spreadsheets aren't working today." -No dep
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Hi, I use Chrome as my default browser and it just added some nice advertising on the home page: Google ChromeBook[^] Which is absolutely great to get unwanted advertising spam :) However, this makes one think - are PC apps going to be around in 10 years time? If I look at the mobile market, more development goes into doing apps and mobile websites than PC desktop applications. Everyone wants an "app" or at least a mobile site to interact with employees and customers. So are PC apps going to be a museum pieces soon? (ps. I can image my two year old son leaving University to 20 years time saying, you used to work on one one those? :omg: ) Cheers.
Larry Ellison and certain other control freaks would love to see the day. Total control of your desktop; when they read Orwell's 1984, they were rooting for Big Brother. Former attempts include the various attempts to sell the market on various 'thin clients' that attached to the servers. When I put on my IT hat, I can sympathize with the benefits of controlling those desktops so stupid users don't damage the data, crash their PC's, introduce conficker via their flash drives, etc. etc. As an information collector/broker, and sometimes security consultant - I think you must be out of your mind to 'trust' a server farm's underpaid personnel with your data. Yes, you 'could' implement your own 'in house cloud' and many enterprises are already doing that to one degree or another. The cash register at the fast food restaurant is an example. However - my personal data? You can have it when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers. (to borrow a slogan from the NRA). Once you decide you don't want to share your data with a surprisingly large number of individuals who are purportedly trustworthy according to other people who offer smiling assurances about how carefully they screen their employees? At that point, the benefits of cloud and software as a service drop considerably. The data storage as a service makes a LOT more economic sense than software as a service. The data is everything. The software - it some ways, it doesn't matter whether it is downloaded (assuming an ultra-reliable, 24/7 available source)or locally installed. On the other hand, downloading and running the software as a run time event, where you don't install the software locally - makes updates easier, and provides a way to charge by the hour of use, control of licenses, that's the benefits. Otherwise, you are wasting bandwidth by having to haul that software over and over and over. Once again, it's all about control, who has it and who wants it? I like locally installed software and local data - I have control of my stuff, you have control of your stuff. That's the way *I LIKE IT*. YMMV
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There are no PC apps that I know of. So they probably have already died out. Apps are thingies that run on weak processors and spend most of the time waiting for input, waiting for web requests or waiting for a database. And they have a shiny UI to make all the waiting more bearable. They are mostly fat and only very little muscle. As for programs and applications that actually do something except waiting for something: They will also need all the processor, RAM GPU and other resources they can get and will certainly be around.
And from the clouds a mighty voice spoke:
"Smile and be happy, for it could come worse!"And I smiled and was happy
And it came worse.Microsoft Office.
Software Zen:
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