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The Decline Of The Desktop 281

Posted by Zonk from the you-don't-own-me dept.
Lam1969 writes "Robert Mitchell of Computerworld has written an article about the decline of the desktop in the workplace. He also notes in his blog: 'This theme of 'squeezing' more hours out of workers came up a few times as this story came together. Using technology to increase productivity is a good thing, but in some cases productivity wasn't increasing -- employees were simply expected to work more hours.'" From the article: "After almost a quarter of a century as the personal computing device of choice for business, the desktop PC is sliding off its pedestal. It has withstood assaults by technologies such as the Windows terminal, the Web and the network PC, but the mighty desktop has been humbled by user demand for the one thing it can't deliver -- mobility."
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The Decline Of The Desktop

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  • but desktops can deliver something else... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MoFoQ ( 584566 ) on Tuesday September 27, 2005 @04:18PM (#13661892)
    "...user demand for the one thing it can't deliver -- mobility."


    But desktops can deliver a few things that mobiles can't....like not burning your laptop...and the best bang for the buck performance as well as upgradability...though mini-agp and soon to be mini-pcie (?) will help notebooks with some of that. :p
    • But desktops can deliver a few things that mobiles can't....like not burning your laptop...

      You know, you can put your laptop on a desk, just like your desktop.
      • You know, you can put your desktop in your car, just like you can a laptop.

        (seriously, I do it all the time, it takes no more extra time to take a desktop someplace than it does to take a laptop)

      • Re:but desktops can deliver something else... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by MoFoQ ( 584566 ) on Tuesday September 27, 2005 @04:51PM (#13662210)
        oops...meant to type "lap" not "laptop"...well I guess "lap top" is ok too.

        but some times....the purpose of a notebook/laptop is portability...like u are on the bus or train or somewhere and there's no counter-top or table-top and u have to use your lap....

        anyways...laptops are nice...but I don't expect it to replace desktops...and I don't expect desktops to replace laptops either...it's like the same reason why a multi-tool hasn't replaced non-multitools yet...aka...the reason why the gatorgrip thing on TV hasn't caused everyone to stop buying Craftsman tool sets.

        of course, because of the price factor of laptops/notebooks, ppl don't tend to upgrade or replace that often compared to desktops where many parts from a desktop can be reused (like the monitor for one).

    • Re:but desktops can deliver something else... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Toddlerbob ( 705732 ) on Tuesday September 27, 2005 @04:23PM (#13661959)
      "It has withstood assaults by technologies such as the Windows terminal, the Web and the network PC, but the mighty desktop has been humbled by user demand for the one thing it can't deliver -- mobility."

      But desktops can deliver a few things that mobiles can't....like not burning your laptop...and the best bang for the buck performance as well as upgradability...though mini-agp and soon to be mini-pcie (?) will help notebooks with some of that

      I agree.

      To me, the original statement seems backwards. Users have always wanted mobility, but it's only lately that PDA's and laptops, etc. have finally delivered the capability to do want you want with them, and yet have them be mobile. So it's not humbled by mobility so much as the maturation of mobile technologies.

    • the best bang for the buck performance as well as upgradability...though mini-agp and soon to be mini-pcie (?) will help notebooks with some of that.

      I know of very few people or companies that actually upgrade their PCs. It's usually more worth it to do an entire system upgrade. I doubt that the new laptop modularity will convince people to make much use of it--they'd rather ebay their old box and buy a new one.
      • really? companies are more likely to upgrade the entire system or like our company use parts from it to build "new" systems.

        You can't really do that with notebooks...parts aren't that inter-swappable.

        Plus an entirely new system doesn't mean that they also replace the keyboard/mice, monitor and other peripherals.
    • Desktop computers will always have a place in certain areas. For instance I'm the technician for a hospital and a lot of the computer users never have any need to work from home. No reason to spend more money on a laptop that will never leave the desk. People who are on the move will require some sort of mobile tool... be it laptop, cell phone, pda etc. The best tool to fit the position.

      • Re:but desktops can deliver something else... (Score:4, Funny)

        by Skye16 ( 685048 ) on Tuesday September 27, 2005 @04:45PM (#13662156)
        The only reason I want a laptop at work is so I can work from home legitimately. Do I have any real reason to work from home? Not really. I just feel more productive in my underwear and music blasting.

        Of course, when I do present my request for a laptop, it will hinge on "bad weather" and my above average distance from work, rather than any pressing need to write code in my 'roos and a beer on my desk.

        But shh. Don't tell my boss.
    • You are not thinking in term of most businesses. They have an IT Staff working at around $20 an hour ($28 an hour if you include benefits).
      Like not burning your laptop...most businesses have desks. Not an option.
      the best bang for the buck performance Most people don't need high performance systems, and most companies that have all Desktop Solutions have usually 5%-10% more desktops then per person because they are set up in stations, then there is the requirement to have power, UPSs, Monitors. Software Lic
    • But desktops can deliver a few things that mobiles can't....like not burning your laptop...and the best bang for the buck performance as well as upgradability...though mini-agp and soon to be mini-pcie (?) will help notebooks with some of that. :p

      The main reason that laptops are being used more and more is that they are good enough. There are always going to be people who just want the most GigaFlops per second. The vast majority of users now dont. They want their computer to do a certain number of things. I'm sure that you don't need me to spell out the list, but email/web/word processing would be a good start.

      Once you can do those things, and on a portable machine that doesn't dim every light in the house when you turn it on, the assessment changes. Its strange how you list heat generatiion/power consumption as a factor that counts in favour of desktops. For most people, a low power computer that is portable and doesn't dominate a room has alot of upside. The fact that they are designed to be low power is a big bonus.

      And realistically, everything about desktop computers has gotten smaller over the last 20 years. Just look at the Mac Mini, or even the smaller form factor PC's. These weren't possible 20 years ago. Today, you can't buy anything in the original form factors of the IBM PC's (to my knowledge). Your choice is beoming between a small desktop or a laptop, with a big case system really being reserved for the top end.

      Get used to it. 50% of users is just the beginning. It will be 90% soon enough, especially with the next increment in storage (particularly flash), CPU (Low leakage chips with ultra low power consumption) and portable networking speeds (WiMax in particular). Thats not even counting things like digital paper which will drive down power consumption even more. With all this, the number of people who will be saying that they need a desktop to provide some extra functionality they can't get in a laptop is going to fall to a very low percentage of users.

      As for upgradeability, you only upgrade because you feel that your current machine doesn't do as much as you would like it to. If you feel that it does everything you want, the need to replace components becomes less compelling for the average user.

      Michael
      • Get used to it. 50% of users is just the beginning. It will be 90% soon enough, especially with the next increment in storage (particularly flash), CPU (Low leakage chips with ultra low power consumption) and portable networking speeds (WiMax in particular). Thats not even counting things like digital paper which will drive down power consumption even more. With all this, the number of people who will be saying that they need a desktop to provide some extra functionality they can't get in a laptop is going
        • While I agree with the rest of your post, there is one factor you're forgetting: price. On average, a desktop costs half as much as its mobile counterpart, for similar specs. And in the corporate world, this is what the boss will look for above all else, particularly when you factor in lost, stolen, and damaged mobile devices. Speaking of theft, sensitive data is more likely to be stored in static locations, so there will always be a market for desktops.

          I'd certainly agree with the theft issue - its certain

  • Well, not really... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Brandon K ( 888791 ) on Tuesday September 27, 2005 @04:18PM (#13661893)
    In these days, there are public computers just about everywhere you turn. Public libraries, schools, internet cafes, I've even seen some coffee shops which have a few usable desktops. Not to mention that almost all people have their own PC.

    I don't think portability should be a huge concern. Personally, I wouldn't even consider buying a laptop until they are guaranteed a much longer battery life. 2 or 3 hours max while playing something like WoW? No thank you!

    • Re:Well, not really... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by temojen ( 678985 ) on Tuesday September 27, 2005 @04:23PM (#13661956) Journal
      If you're sitting in one place long enough to play a game for 3 hours, plug it in.

    • 2 or 3 hours max while playing something like WoW?

      Well... for WoW there're A/C power adapters. I suppose that would be annoying if you wanted to play WoW at a picnic down by the lake. For me, however, when I was moving and had no phone line (let alone an Internet connection), I was mooching off of Panera and friends for a couple weeks. I was very pleased to find that Panera does provide access to the power grid.

      I know that the percentage of Americans who own computers crossed the half-way mark in 2

    • 2 or 3 hours max while playing something like WoW? No thank you!

      That's gobs of time. While I'm usually the biggest Apple fanboy in the whole wide world, try about an hour on my Powerbook running full speed, and less than two if I set it to power-save mode. That, and it produces so much waste heat it's almost as good as getting your tubes tied if you're dumb enough to actually set the thing on your lap. Of course, it gets almost four hours when I'm just editing plain text.

      • Surfing the web and reading documentation, such as the ADC included in Mac OS X, I get about 4 1/2 hours or so out of my 12" PowerBook G4. Seriously, the battery life on this thing kicks ass.

        Playing Halo sucks in power saving mode, so you have to crank the CPU up a bit, but that's the main limitation. I also have the screen set at low brightness.
    • Why yes, I want to use my Internet banking from the spyware infested machines at the Internet cafe-du-jour.

  • the Wireless tech (Score:3, Informative)

    by jellomizer ( 103300 ) * on Tuesday September 27, 2005 @04:18PM (#13661898)
    High Speed Wireless Networking becoming widely available. Why wouldn't a company want to give their users laptops, while there is an extra costs of the laptop and major IT Pain in the butts, with viruses, and creating proper security parameters. But besides that why not, if you can give your employee a laptop and have them work while they are sick at home, or allow them to telecommute, thus you can save on electricity and maintenance costs. Or just relocate without having to change your infrastructure.

    • Re:the Wireless tech (Score:5, Informative)

      by YrWrstNtmr ( 564987 ) on Tuesday September 27, 2005 @04:30PM (#13662031)
      If I'm sick at home, I am Sick.At.Home. I am not working, I am resting/recuperating.

      If I am expected to be working, then I am not 'sick', I am working from home, and expect to be paid as such. That is called telecommuting.

      • If I'm 'sick at home' I'm probably not home at all - just needed an extra vacation day so thought I'd use on of the 5 sick days the company allots annually. How handy is that laptop going to be then?
      • Well said.. seems Slashdot in the last 2-3 days has been getting a lot of "Bussinesseseses comes first cause I'm the boss!" type posts. Lots of guys who seem to forget that they need us, not we need them. If we're ill we're rather fucked and expecting us to work only makes it longer and us unhappier, so we do less work etc.

        Guess sooner or later they'll realize at slashdot we're pro people not pro money and fuck off or join us :/
      • Well, when I think of telecommuting, I think of planned time home preapproved by my boss.

        I certainly don't think of the mornings where I wake up sick but capable of work, only I'd rather not infect the whole office. That is when I can call up my boss and say "Hi, I'm not feeling very well, could I work from home today?" and if yes, I get paid. If no, "I'm sorry but I have to call in sick today."

        Even if you aren't regularly telecommuting, the latter might happen. And I certainly wouldn't think of that possib
    • Have them work while they're sick at home? Amazing. I notice you weren't suggesting you could work while you were sick at home.

      It also ties in to the point from the author's blog, that laptops were sometimes used to get people to work more hours.

      I'd like to see a manager look at productivity. Amount and quality of work being completed, vs amount of hours one's direct reports are at their desks. Old ideas are hard to let go of.

      • Re:the Wireless tech (Score:5, Interesting)

        by IdleTime ( 561841 ) on Tuesday September 27, 2005 @05:36PM (#13662547) Journal
        Yeah and anyone who works more than their agreed upon hours per week without compensation are stupid. Thanks to all the stupid people, bosses think they can do whatever they want with employees and the stupid ones let them.

        Why the hell do you think people for ages fought for 40 hour work weeks? Just so they could lay on the beach the rest of the time? You don't think working 70-80 hour weeks have any influence on your health or your family life, children etc?

        Every company that asked me to work those hours only got a harsh laugh before they saw my ass walking out the door still laughing. Needless to say, the company I now work for never require people to work outside their 40 hour weeks and if they do, it's copensated and it is very rare. A company that asks you to work 70-80 hour weeks have a horrible managment and should be avoided at all cost!
  • The mighty desktop has been humbled by user demand for the one thing it can't deliver -- mobility.

    Persoanlly I don't move around my 5 square foot cube enough to necessitate a laptop, maybe when I'm OUT of the workplace...

  • Nah... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jigjigga ( 903943 ) on Tuesday September 27, 2005 @04:19PM (#13661908)
    People may like having cell phones/blackberries/access to terminals in libraries/etc... but at the end of the day they head back to their desktop.

    • Re:Nah... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by DarkProphet ( 114727 )
      I must be the exception... I have a newish 3.0Ghz Athlon / 512MB / 360GB desktop that I almost never use at all, in favor of my 2 year old 1.4Ghz / 512MB / 60G Centrino laptop.

      But then, I prefer to pound out code at my local coffeeshop instead of at home. Surprisingly, there seems to be less distraction at the coffeeshop than at home ;-) But even when at home, I prefer the laptop. The only reasons I can think for the preference is that
      • CRT monitors hurt my eyes and I can't afford a desktop LCD monito

  • Is mobility overrated? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by tjstork ( 137384 ) <todd@bandrowsky.gmail@com> on Tuesday September 27, 2005 @04:19PM (#13661913) Homepage Journal
    Do you really want to lug a computer with you everywhere? Is it really that important to get your bosses email while you are at a party with 8 drinks in you? Or do you just not drink in case your boss sends you an email. Don't be a surf, throw all those shackles away and buy guns and booze instead.

    • Re:Is mobility overrated? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Surt ( 22457 )
      The reason many people want laptops is not to be tied to work at any time, but to be freed from the need to be in the office. Many computer workers can work just as effectively from the location of their choice with a laptop. From another state, another country, to the park down the street. Think of a laptop as a massive upgrade in the quality of your workspace, better than the corner office on the top floor.

    • Now I can tell who's not a parent! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Travoltus ( 110240 ) on Tuesday September 27, 2005 @04:37PM (#13662094) Journal
      A laptop maxes out at 15 pounds for last generation's biggest and fattest. Ever been a parent with an infant over 2 months old? They're far heavier and they squirm. And they like to be held. A LOT. :D

      That off-topic point aside, I would suggest you never be wired into your job when you're out with your laptop off hours. Also, I use my laptop to jot down ideas when I'm writing, and it also carries my music and quite a few anime movies. I could of course use a really expensive and high-end PDA to do this too, but I can more readily install RedHat on my laptop than my PDA. Being that my laptop is not a gaming machine it provides me with a fairly distraction-free environment to write my stories, do homework, etc.

      That being said, I'd be mad pissed if desktops went away. I use a workstation styled desktop machine at home to play games, especially real time simulators (warcraft, starcraft, etc) that no console can possibly work well with (try moving a dozen individual units around different places with any level of agility with a PS2 / Xbox controller... please, do!). My desktop machine also serves as a highly agile archive system with 2 DVD burners and several terabytes of firewire HD space online. I can back up stuff off my laptop to my desktop machine and so on.

      To me, the relationship between the laptop and the desktop is my laptop is my starship and my desktop is my starbase. I would not desire a computer market in which the former or the latter has been deprecated.

    • My thoughts exactly. Why be a slave just because your idiot supervisor makes promises you have to keep by constantly working? Laptops. Gah.

      Work 8 hours a day then go the fuck home. And go walk in a park, for Christ's sake.

  • Old news (Score:5, Insightful)

    by /ASCII ( 86998 ) on Tuesday September 27, 2005 @04:20PM (#13661915) Homepage
    Yeah yeah, mobility will kill desktop PCs, it's been around the corner fro what? Half a decade? As soon as the next generation of shiny CDMA connections or mobile phones or ultralight laptops or desktop replacement laptops or mobile phones or Starbucks comfy chars launch, the desktop PC will be nothing but a memory. There are some things that never change:
    • Broadband over powerlines is just around the corner
    • The desktop PC is dying

    • Re:Old news (Score:3, Funny)

      by Fastball ( 91927 )
      The one thing holding me back from buying a notebook for personal use (got one from work), is that I DON'T want to take a PC everywhere with me. Sure, there's folks that can really use that sort of mobility. But when I'm done with a computer, I want to leave it behind, you know?

      Then again, I'm not a gadgeteer of any sort either. Guess that makes me kind of a loner...here among...loners.

      *crickets*
      • I have two laptops. A relatively new PowerBook, and an oldish ThinkPad I bought for the occasions when I want / need to be in Windows or something a bit more traditional-UNIX than OS X. I can take one or both almost anywhere, but I don't feel I have to. If the weather's nice, I can go and work under a tree in the park, rather than at my desk, for example. I can also work in bed, which is a huge advantage - I've got some of my best work done by grabbing my laptop instead of getting up.

        Another huge adv

    • I dunno. I'm hardly a portable electronics buff (I got my first cell phone a few weeks ago, but have forgotten the number already) but my desktop computer has been gathering dust for two years. I have a work-provided laptop with docking station, and that and my TiBook at home (and a Linux account I ssh to at work) cover pretty much 100% of my computing. I don't envision ever buying a new desktop computer.

    • Re:Old news (Score:3, Informative)

      by F_Scentura ( 250214 )
      "Yeah yeah, mobility will kill desktop PCs, it's been around the corner fro what? Half a decade?"

      1) Price has not been this low in the past.

      2) Notebook systems *are* being sold in record numbers. Regardless of your opinion, desktops have lost a significant share in the last half-decade.
    • Yeah yeah, mobility will kill desktop PCs, it's been around the corner fro what? Half a decade? As soon as the next generation of shiny CDMA connections or mobile phones or ultralight laptops or desktop replacement laptops or mobile phones or Starbucks comfy chars launch, the desktop PC will be nothing but a memory. There are some things that never change:

      Broadband over powerlines is just around the corner
      The desktop PC is dying

      Also, sustainable breakeven fusion is always 20 years away.

    • Re:Old news (Score:5, Funny)

      by The Lynxpro ( 657990 ) <lynxproNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Tuesday September 27, 2005 @04:30PM (#13662028)
      "There are some things that never change:Broadband over powerlines is just around the corner The desktop PC is dying"

      Don't forget about these either:

      *Linux is almost ready for the consumer desktop.

      *Apple/BSD/Sun/Palm/PalmOS/TiVo is dying.

      *Windows ___ is the best version of Windows ever!

      * ____ is the Microsoft killer!

      and

      *Duke Nukem Forever - coming soon!

    • Yeah yeah, mobility will kill desktop PCs, it's been around the corner fro what? Half a decade?
      It is happening where I work, and I'd say the majority now use laptops as their main/only computer. Desktops have little advantage over a laptop+docking station, and great disadvantage when it comes to conveience and productively for people who aren't in the same place all the time.
      • Laptops can't handle anywhere near the amount of storage a desktop can. I'm approaching a terabyte of storage on my main desktop machine (and 200gb on my secondary desktop); my laptop has 30gb of space. Laptops will simply never catch up with desktops in power and storage capacity. Sure they'll always be getting better, but they're working limitations that desktops simply don't have to contend with.

        Given that, when I'm at home, or at the office, I'm going to work from a desktop machine. It's faster, upg

  • Sun Ray (Score:5, Interesting)

    by AKAImBatman ( 238306 ) * <`akaimbatman' `at' `gmail.com'> on Tuesday September 27, 2005 @04:20PM (#13661919) Homepage Journal
    As was mentioned in the article, laptops can be difficult to use for a full 8 hour day. The keyboard is all wrong, and the screen is always too low. Docking stations take care of that problem (expensive!), but that still doesn't solve a company-wide problem of laptop support. For example, laptops introduce a problem with keeping all files on a shared server (though folder caching can help somewhat), and laptops are prone to breakage which both increases costs and may result in lost data.

    One of the more interesting ideas in recent years has been the Sun Ray Station [sun.com]. Tying into the previous article, the idea is that each employee is given a secure SmartCard that contains both his secret login key as well as information on how to make the Ray Station connect with the server. The advantage this has over traditional thin clients is that the user is allowed to roam to any available computer and simply "plug in". As soon as the card is inserted, your desktop is brought up EXACTLY where you left it!

    This technology gets even more exciting when you realize that it can be used from remote locations. i.e. If I have a Ray Station at home (quite fesible given their cost), I can simply insert my card into my home station. The station looks at the info on the card, finds the remote server, and logs me in. Zero configuration, instant satisfaction.

    Of course, the idea of Ray Stations doesn't help if you need to work from a coffee shop, hotel, or on the plane. (Many planes are adding wireless data points.) For those situations, Tadpole has developed a laptop-like product known as the Comet [tadpolecomputer.com]. It's a complete portable unit, with a large screen, wifi, and exceedingly long battery life. (Up to 8 hours!) Simply plug your card into the laptop when you're near a Wifi point, and BAM, you've got access to your desktop!

    Sadly, the Sun Ray Station concept still leaves you high and dry in many different situations. (e.g. On the bus or train.) But the concept is there, and further research and development by Sun combined with more and more Wifi points popping up may very well lead to the perfect solution that both centralizes your data yet gives employees the mobility they need.

    • Re:Sun Ray (Score:4, Interesting)

      by lelitsch ( 31136 ) on Tuesday September 27, 2005 @04:37PM (#13662093)
      Have you actually used a Sun Ray station? The might have improved tremendously over the last couple of years, but as of 2003, they were pretty much unusable except in very special circumstances (email lab, internet cafe,...). Maybe a call center. But anything that needs fast graphics, or a wide range of applications simply doesn't work.

      They finally got rid of the original SunRay with the build in fairly crappy 15" monitor, but it still doesn't give you mobility in a way that a laptop does. You can move from Ray Station to Ray station, but you can't go to a meeting room, move from your table to a chair in the cafeteria, and so on.

      The Sun Ray has its place when you need data terminals that people can move between. Nurse stations would be a perfect place for them--just give every nurse and doctor a smart card. But now what if the nurse or a doctor wants a computer to take into the patients' rooms on rounds? Do you put a Sun Ray at the end of every bed? Do you buy additional laptops for this purpose and then upload the data via WiFi to the central server and from there to the individual stations? The latter would work, but then you are back to having a mixed network which is what the Rays were supposed to avoid.

      If and when the introduce a Ray laptop or tablet, it might be worth another look, but until then, a SunRay only slightly more mobile than a desktop.
    • I like the concept of the Sun Ray but Sun really blew it when they marketed them. I decided to check out the costs, (At least I did this 5 years ago) and the cost of a powerful enough (Sun) server and the cost of the Rays, was still the cost of Linux PCs with a more modest (Sun) server. While the long term costs are better, the short term costs are about the same and still a little higher. If Sun made these rays at $99 a pop and allowed 10 rays to work well on an Ultra10 with 128 megs of ram, then it coul
      • I like the concept of the Sun Ray but Sun really blew it when they marketed them.

        At the time they were pretty expensive, but that was partly because of the cost of the CRT. They're now a bit more reasonable ($359 for basic unit), but I'm sure Sun is still making a killing on them. Still, the lower costs of administration tend to work out in most companies' favor.

        The biggest mistake that Sun has made (IMHO) is greatly overestimate the size of the system needed for users. Back when I was admining a Citrix Wi

    • Re:Sun Ray (Score:3, Interesting)

      by LWATCDR ( 28044 )
      You could do the same thing with a linux terminal server. I have often thought that this could be a future direction for computers to go.
      You could make a nice laptop that runs one on the New Xscale, Alchemy, or G4s chips. Use a small flash drive for booting and run a VNC or an x Terminal. All the apps would run on a remote server and so would your mass storage.
      This would take universal high speed wireless and wired connections.
      What is scary is it actually is logical. Why worry about backing up and viruses?

      • Re:Sun Ray (Score:3, Funny)

        by AKAImBatman ( 238306 ) *
        WAAAAAYYYYYY back in the day, AT&T (Bell Labs), GE, and MIT collaborated on a project known as MULTICS [wikipedia.org]. Their idea was to build an ultra-scalable machine that could handle any number of users in a multi-user environment. The thought these companies had was that they'd be able to sell computer power like they sold power. Home users would have a network cable strung to their home, and they'd be able to "plug in" appliances that could make use of that power.

        Sadly, the project was very difficult to pull off

    • MS remote desktop? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by way2trivial ( 601132 )
      My first hand experience...

      my pc at work SUCKS, but my connection doesn't (dsl at work, comcast cable at home)

      I use windows remote desktop, (mstc.exe) and pull up my desktop from home pc (and due to using the termserv.dll hack) while my wife uses the same pc at the same time for whatever. Including CPU sucking games... when I get home, I log in, and my desktop is '''' exactly the same as I left it at work ''''! cursor blinking in the same spot etc,. if I go out to my shed, I can pull it up on my old win

    • Re:Sun Ray (Score:2, Informative)

      by snitmo ( 901312 )
      I agree with you that SunRay brings some nice things. Especailly, reduction in IT management cost is big. However, the biggest problem I (and my customers) have had with SunRay is that it runs on Solaris. Most users are familar with Windows as a desktop OS. It's sad but true. Citrix (or whatever else Windows based thin client system) can give you most of the benefit you mentioned, and it runs Windows. I am not sure how SunRay can beat that.
    • I use my laptop daily and have now for around a year and a half. All you need to do is get a USB keyboard/mouse and another monitor and you have a very flexible Dual head configuration. I use this computer to do all of my engineering tasks- Coding, circuit design, hardware debugging (using usb->Rs232 converter), circuit simulation, slashdot posts and word processing.

      Great thing about this setup is that if I ever need to go anywhere my whole desktop PC is all of a sudden portable - I don't have to worr

  • Netcraft confirms it (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Fastball ( 91927 ) on Tuesday September 27, 2005 @04:21PM (#13661925) Journal
    The desktop is dead...

    You can have mine and my dual 20.1" LCDs when you pry them from my cold dead fingers. That and when I can mix and match parts (i.e. upgrade) a notebook to meet my needs.

    • Hell yeah (Score:3, Insightful)

      by attemptedgoalie ( 634133 )
      I run dual 20's as well.

      The desktop has its place. The notebook has its place.

      The people I work with all want the superchief notebooks with 17" screens. I want the lightest, smallest one I can get. If I have to use a notebook in a meeting, fine. But when I get back, I want usable desktop space. No missing emails because it was under the document I'm writing. Video conferencing on one screen while working on the other.

      No other way.

  • You wonder why? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by cheier ( 790875 )
    Offices aren't just trying to get more people working more hours at the office. The push for the Centrino platform by Intel has probably started to convince employees and employers that the life of a worker exists solely to the company.

    Give them a laptop and they shal work at home in the off hours, or even on vacation.

  • Tell me about the death of Computing (Score:5, Interesting)

    by denissmith ( 31123 ) * on Tuesday September 27, 2005 @04:22PM (#13661941)
    For certain applications ( which he alludes to in TFA ) - Graphics, visualization, scientific computing, etc. the desktop is still essential. But the reason isn't that it sits on a desk, or is tethered to the wall, its because you need faster processing power, faster hard drives and much, much bigger screen real estate. I would love to move to a laptop, but the small screen and slow hard drive make large scale image editing ( a small file is 120MB, a big file is 1.6GB) impossible. Plus heat. These things run hat for constant use. What's changed is that more users are able to find a better fit with the computing power that they actually need ( part time use, web surfing, email and word processing, and number crunching in the accountiing, not scientific data, sense.) This isn't so much the end of the desktop as the rise of something new. In a few years ( Google willing) we'll be reading stories of the demise of the laptop, as web based filesystems and ubiquitous broadband wireless allow cheap cell phone processing to.... Whatever. The fact is that computing is becoming available everywhere and all the time and that means it is becoming invisible. It will be built into the fabric of everything. It won't be separate anymore.

    • In the year 2000:

      • Synthesizers to replace musicians
      • Segway scooters to replace cars
      • Pens to replace pencils
      • Laserdisc to replace video cassettes...

      When my laptop doesn't have problems running MySQL/Oracle, Eclipse/JDeveloper, WebLogic, XML Spy, and GIMP all at once without buring a hole in my pants... I will agree. I use a powerful laptop, but I still use my desktop alot, ESPECIALLY at work.

  • Nice Try, but I'm Not Convinced (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Azarael ( 896715 ) on Tuesday September 27, 2005 @04:24PM (#13661964) Homepage
    I kind of disagree with the mobility argument in the FA. Once you're done unplugging the power, mouse keyboard, speakers and any other peripherals, you may have just copied your work to a network directory so you can just access it somewhere else (you don't even have to lug the laptop with you). Also, I'd like to know how much 3d and autocad work was done on a laptop. What it comes down to, is that most of the downsides that were mentioned about pc's are not that hard to overcome and there are only a few situations where laptops are really that much of a necessity.

  • It's the song that never ends... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Skye16 ( 685048 ) on Tuesday September 27, 2005 @04:24PM (#13661969)
    I've heard it all before. I'm sure I'll continue hearing it for quite some time.

    Do we really need to hear about it from every semi-random schmuck with a blog, though? Consoles are killing the gaming pc and laptops are killing the home pc. And we'll hear about it again next year. And the year after that. And the year after that.

    I guess I just can't see a family giving up a non-mobile, non-delicate system the entire family can use (from 4 years old and onward) to something that will invariably find itself cartwheeling down a flight of steps because little susie and little billy weren't careful enough. Or letting their teenage son take the home laptop into his bedroom to "do homework" late at night *cough*.

    I could see it being something the adults would be interested in - but as a replacement of the home PC? That's incredibly hard to believe - no matter how many times I hear it.

    You are free, of course, to test the strength of that statement by duping this article tomorrow. I'm sure it'd give everyone something to bitch about :)

    Really, though. Call me whenever there are more laptops in homes than PCs. Call me when owning a PC becomes a niche market. Then you can tell me all about it. Until then, let's simmer the conjecture down a bit, shall we? The first time, not so bad, the second time, meh, the third time...starting to get annoying, and now, the 82nd time... well... yeah.
    • Here's an idea:
      "Consoles are killing the gaming pc"
      Or are they becoming the same thing? The upcoming consoles (xBox360 especially comes to mind) have all the media qualities of a home pc that a gamer would use when not gaming, and internet capability was included in the last generation consoles. Honestly, what's the real difference between the gaming PC and the console now? It's just a bunch of extra software and some few odd hardware pieces that make the gaming PC vastly more expensive, or with the "ful

  • Love my desktop, refused a laptop many times (Score:3, Interesting)

    by snowwrestler ( 896305 ) on Tuesday September 27, 2005 @04:25PM (#13661973)
    Why? Because I leave the desktop at work at the end of the day. I have a personal laptop I can use if I absolutely need to check e-mail, but without a company laptop I don't have the software or VPN connection to do any sort of real work. It is one way to enforce a bit of life balance on myself--something that slips away easily if I know I can "just finish that up at home in front of the TV."
  • The mighty desktop has been humbled by user demand for the one thing it can't deliver -- mobility. Sun has been selling SunRay desktops for many years. It does exactly what this writer wants, and is a proven technology. The fact that M$ has nothing like this is obvious. For those who are uniformed: http://www.sun.com/desktop/index.jsp?tab=1 [sun.com]

    • Re:Thin clients (Score:3, Informative)

      by shmlco ( 594907 )
      "The fact that M$ has nothing like this is obvious."

      Huh? Funny, I thought that this was exactly what Terminal Services and/or Remote Desktop achieved?

      For those who are uniformed: Terminal Services [microsoft.com]

  • Death of the PC again? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by UnapprovedThought ( 814205 ) on Tuesday September 27, 2005 @04:28PM (#13662013) Journal

    This reminds me of the time some years ago when "the death of the PC" was imminent. Well, there was a lot of hand-wringing over it, but it doesn't look like that came true.

    On what grounds to they predict this one besides the mantra that the network is the computer and you will be doing all of your surfing through a tiny phone, when a lot of people tell me they just want a phone to be a phone, not a magic wand with worse sound quality than a turn of the previous-century aliminum drum?

  • Both worlds: Powerbook + Cinema display (Score:3, Insightful)

    by G4from128k ( 686170 ) on Tuesday September 27, 2005 @04:28PM (#13662014)
    My wife uses a small 12" powerbook attached to a large 22" cinema display for a good combo of mobile usability and desktop usability. The DVI port on that laptop means she's not cramped by the 12" screen most of the time. And the 12" size/ 4.5 lb weight makes for better portability.

  • Tech reporters trolling? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by zappepcs ( 820751 ) on Tuesday September 27, 2005 @04:32PM (#13662040) Journal
    This topic has been coming up since the advent of the mobile computer. There are definitive reasons, both business and technological, for using either a desktop or a laptop.

    Things to consider:
    Is the user mobile often enough to warrant the cost and risks?
    Is the user likely to damage, lose, or steal it?
    Is the user likely to lose, damage, or sell company information?

    People who work in call centers are not likely to warrant the cost and risk of a laptop. At least not yet. 'Green' PCs and monitors mean that laptops don't save that much energy, and risk of theft or damage is higher when using laptops for non-mobile users. Additionally, upgrades and change out programs are much more expensive.

    Using laptops and mobile devices increases the risks: financial, corporate IP theft or sale, information loss, productivity loss, risk of loss of functionality when the IT department isn't there to support it, and many other things.

    What I basically feel is that this article, while posing some good points, is just a troll dressed in sheep's clothing. Hardware choices make sense in view of, and in combination with the domain of their use. If that domain is airplanes and hotel rooms, definitely a laptop. If that domain is strictly a cubicle - no laptop. If the domain is mixed, business reasoning comes into play. For personal use, style has its say in that choice too.

    A poor analogy is that a 4wheel drive is good to have when you are fjording rivers. But if you are just commuting to work then a Hummer is a bad idea... no matter what size bear you are.

    Wow, so the article points out that now computers can be mobile... not a lot to see here, move along.
  • In my line of work, I'm sometimes more effective "after business hours." The brain starts working on a subject and I'm able to find stuff that just doesn't click during work hours. Do I count this against work time? Nah. I'm not allowed to "work from home." But you bet that it improves my "productivity" when I return to the office the next day.

    Not really so for "desk monkeys" that have to sit there and listen to some poor (l)user's problems - they can't really "work from home." But it works for some o

  • Not just WiFi (Score:4, Informative)

    by orac2 ( 88688 ) on Tuesday September 27, 2005 @04:37PM (#13662088)
    While the growth of wifi is an important factor, I think the original article missed another contributing factor: changes in peripherals. Once upon a time, apart from printers, most peripherals -- scanners, modems, etc -- required an expansion card of some sort, and the classic, bus mounted, cards for desktops were cheap and universal. Peripherals for laptops often had premium pricing, and in any case, laptops only offered a few card slots or serial/parallel ports. If you cared about expandability, or upgradability, desktops were the way to go.

    Nowadays, between USB and Firewire, a laptop is on a level playing field as far as peripherals are concerned, especially because many devices double as hubs, reliving pressure on laptop real estate. Plus, expensive docking stations are less of an issue -- for example, I use a laptop as my primary machine, but that would a pain for writing things of any length on a routine basis, so at work I just plug a regular flatscreen and a USB keyboard and mouse (the mouse actually plugs into the keyboard) and go.

    In any case the peripherals most people use most often -- wireless and wired network interfaces -- tend to be built right in these days. And as for upgradability: as the article points out most people have more than enough juice in their laptops to do what they need to do.

  • 1986 called - they want their myths back. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 27, 2005 @04:37PM (#13662095)
    Uh huh. The desktop is dying... You know what? Just this morning, I bought a new 250GB HDD and installed it.

    Took me about half an hour to drive to the store and back, and about five minutes to install the harddrive (of which I spent about three minutes with plugging and unplugging my world's favorite fire hazard, aka all the wires behind my desk).

    That's it. Easy-peasy-Japanesy. Sure you can upgrade the your laptop's problem (usually without opening the case) and switch out your old harddrive but you can't just add a new one, and chances are you'll end up paying a pretty penny for your 2.5" laptop HDD.

    My point? There's a place for laptops and there's a place for desktops. There is a growing number of people who can do without a desktop computer, yeah, but the vast majority have both, a laptop and a desktop machine.

    A laptop is never going to replace my desktop computer.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday September 27, 2005 @04:39PM (#13662109)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • That little blog post had one minor insight: Employers want more hours and laptops help them achieve that by letting workers take work home. But it does nothing to back up its big claim of declining desktops. I've yet to see a laptop with the power equal to dual Xeons with 4 Gb of RAM. In the finance world, the trend is towards more powerful desktop. The gap between those workstations and laptop haven't been getting smaller. More importantly, there's another trend, more desktop space as in multiple mon

  • Mobility schmobility... (Score:3, Funny)

    by GillBates0 ( 664202 ) on Tuesday September 27, 2005 @04:41PM (#13662125) Homepage Journal
    It has withstood assaults by technologies such as the Windows terminal, the Web and the network PC, but the mighty desktop has been humbled by user demand for the one thing it can't deliver -- mobility.

    You young 'uns and your fancy schmancy "mobile computers". In my day, we didn't have these flimsy little "laptops". No sirreee, none of these tiny little plastic computers for us.

    We lugged them heavy duty 100% cast iron Sun workstations in to work every morning and carried them home on our backs when the day was done.

    Yes sir. We built character lugging our Sun workstations about and balancing them on our laps. To say nothing of more resilient balls.


  • According to my son, who is addicted to PuzzlePirates. He uses his laptop only for playing Full Tilt Poker.
  • For some bizare reason, everyone here has laptops. I sit in a cube and code all day and I have two laptops (one Mac and one PC). I'd much prefer a G5 tower to my PowerBook, but for whatever reason they don't buy desktops here unless you make a big fuss.

    I do have one desktop computer, a Mac Mini, which I got for testing.

  • Hmmm..... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mpapet ( 761907 ) on Tuesday September 27, 2005 @04:42PM (#13662132) Homepage
    I think he's responding more to two very recognizable trends and packaged it as "the death of the workstation":

    1. The growing laptop unit sales versus the average slow-growth workstation unit sales.

    2. The decline in wealth and political influence of the American middle-class. (using mode not mean or median, see asia times for some IMF reporting http://atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/EH16Dj01.h tml [atimes.com])

    3. There are more companies where it's perfectly okay to treat employees like the developers at EA widely reported on some months ago. So squeeze all potential productivity out of a worker, because the computers and applications and resources we have been so generous in providing are enough to do the job.

  • Killing desktops, but not workstations... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Aphrika ( 756248 ) on Tuesday September 27, 2005 @04:44PM (#13662150)
    Laptops are killing desktops for knowledge workers for one reason; keeping your data with you wherever you are. Ten or more years ago you'd find people went to work, worked, then went home again. However, it's not the laptop per se that's killed off the desktop, it's peripheral advances like wireless technology, increased mobile bandwidth and minaturisation that have done this. Wireless is without a doubt the number one reason why laptops boomed massively in the last 3 or so years.

    Mobile technology also means a mobile workforce. I currently deal with around 250+ users across three locations. A lot of the supplemental departments (finance, HR, operations) move between sites and visit clients, and it's easier for them to take their whole work environment with them than mess about with software licenses, having redundant desktops lying dormant for 50% of the time etc. etc.

    Granted, it's great from their point of view, but laptops are a much bigger concern for IT departments like ours, especially when they get lugged home, used on broadband conections or used on a VPN connection. They're also a pain to keep updated as users tend to move around more - maybe even connect to client networks that don't have the same level of security. In the long run though, we'd rather supply them with a manageable device like a laptop rather than have them mess around with assorted PDAs and smartphones. laptops also have a more tangible value associated with them, so in 99% of cases you don't get silly accidents.

    That said, the laptop may be killing off the humble desktop, but it will never kill off the workstation. For other departments - CGI, storyboard, development, edit etc. - a laptop simply would never cut it. Lots of nearline storage (TB+), colour-matched dual monitors, renderfarms and gigs of RAM are things I'd never want to lug around in a laptop. I know some people will say it can be done, but I would hate to ever consider cutting broadcast quality video and audio on a laptop. It's also important to note that these people don't need to take their data with them. They aren't 'knowledge workers' like the others, but employed to utilise their skills on the material in situ.

    That said, laptops still have a long way to go before they approach the reliability of a desktop - I think we get a fourfold increase in failures on laptops generally.
  • The display is still small, and the keyboard is teh suxor!

  • Advice for computer professionals (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Work Account ( 900793 ) on Tuesday September 27, 2005 @04:47PM (#13662175) Journal
    1.) Leave work at work.

    2.) The last thing you should do when you get home is hop onto your personal computer, but that's what many of us do. We want to do email/IM/blog but it's the last thing we should be doing.

    3.) Find hobbies that have nothing to do with technology. Ride bikes, run, lift weights, camp, geocache, buy a gun, get a significant other if you don't have one, or if you do spend more time with them.

    4.) Most of all just stay well-rounded. In all aspects of your life. Keep a balance (no I'm not religious but yes this is similar to some Ancient Eastern philosophies/religions).
  • The desktop most certainly can deliver mobility, contrarty to the article's statements.

    The trick is to use a portable hard drive to carry a user profile with you. Then, any capable desktop becomes your desktop.

    Apple did this [ipodhacks.com] but for unknown reasons nixed the feature from iPods years ago, just days before it was launched. Perhaps it muddied the "music only" nature of the device.

    Still, it is a great idea - one I welcome Apple to revisit.

  • Have both... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by digitalhermit ( 113459 ) on Tuesday September 27, 2005 @04:49PM (#13662191) Homepage
    My office (well, cubicle) is set up the same way. The laptop goes onto a docking station attached to a couple largish LCD monitors. The laptop has a browser, Java, text editor and most importantly, an SSH client. In other words, the laptop is just a glorified terminal since the real work goes on in the servers and a fixed desktop machine. I access home email via a web page. Work email is either replicated or accessed via a webpage or local client.

    At home I have multiple machines running different applications that are accessed either via X-over-SSH or VNC. At 100Mbit, remote applications appear to be running locally and are even accessed via the same desktop menu using VNC passwd files. Having the laptop is really convenient because I can roam the house and do anything I need, including watch video.
  • I used to work for a consultancy which has offices around throughout Europe. The only people who had desktop machines were secretaries and admin staff who typically went to the same desk with the same phone every day.

    The consultants needed to be flexible because we'd be assigned to different projects which could be in any of the company offices or on the customers site, so we all had laptops and "hot-desked". IIRC The laptops were leased from HP and were updated every three years.

    I left before wireless comm
  • Why, yes, we did: http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/09 / 24/215251&tid=95&tid=137 [slashdot.org]

    OK, I get the picture. Cell phones rule, PCs suck; social butterflys have the say, geeks can shut the hell up. Imminent death of computers predicted, film at eleven. Check, roger wilco, duly noted. And I'm not taking one of these stories seriously until the day I'm reading it on something besides a PC.

  • Laptops do the job for most workers (Score:4, Interesting)

    by r_benchley ( 658776 ) on Tuesday September 27, 2005 @05:13PM (#13662375)
    At the place where I work (insurance company), they just replaced my trusty workstation (1.6gHz P4 desktop) with a Toshiba M3 laptop. From time to time I have to head out on the road, so it's nice to have a laptop. Also, I occasionally give PowerPoint presentations, so I can just remove my laptop from the docking station and set it up in the conference room, rather than requisitioning equipment from IS for the meeting. At work I use Access, Excel, Word, Outlook, Visio, Business Objects, Oracle, and a few custom written applications, so I don't need a lot of horsepower in my computer (although the Toshiba is fairly decent). The VAST majority of people who use computers in their jobs do not need the latest and greatest hardware to accomplish their tasks. Most people could probably get by using Pentium IIs or IIIs. On the point of employers issuing laptops in an effort to squeeze out extra work hours from their employees, that is a valid concern. In my own situation, my manager is super cool and doesn't expect me to slave away on my own personal time. There are times when I'll put in overtime or do some work from home, but it's complete optional and well-rewarded. I'm looking forward to the day when I don't need to leave the apartment to do my job. A company issued laptop and a WiMax connection would be very cool. No dress code, no commute, no putting up with the co-workers that I despise.

  • I'm ready to lose the desktop (Score:3, Interesting)

    by TheSync ( 5291 ) on Tuesday September 27, 2005 @05:15PM (#13662396) Journal
    I'm ready to lose the desktop. Basically, security patching is driving me nuts. Yes, even on my Linux systems! Backup sucks too. I'm ready to have a diskless thin client network connected into an efficient virtual blade world with big RAIDed SANs/NASes backed up on tape/DVD/etc with a UPS, one that SOMEONE ELSE RUNS. Why should I have to install blogging and other web content management software on my server? Seriously, root is just no fun any more.
  • It's about standardizing a hardware package that users can't dink with as much. Plus the inventory is cheaper to carry than a big bulky desktop.

  • Drivetop (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Doc Ruby ( 173196 ) on Tuesday September 27, 2005 @08:16PM (#13663465) Homepage Journal
    Desktops were useful when no one understood computers, and were familiar with info work only in forms like desks, file cabinets, folders, documents. Now everyone understands computers, and are held back by the ill-fitting desktop metaphor. What we need are dashboards, like the ones Americans invented for cars. Essential info for navigating infospace, available at a glance, supporting the main action of getting where we're going. Get the machine out of the way, except to cushion the road.

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