The Personal Computer Is Dead

The P.C. has come and gone. That's it, it has had it's day in the sun. Sure it will be around forever, but it will no longer be the center of technology. Just as you can still buy record players, and LP's, you'll always be able to buy PC"s, but they will no longer be at the forefront of tech.
The new "must have" is going to be Internet devises, digital devises, or network appliances, if you will.
The iPod and the iPhone are good examples. The iPod is a digital devise that not only makes CD's obsolete, it makes record stores redundant as well. The iPhone is not just a phone, its an Internet devise. That's what makes it so new and exciting. It has been out just a short time and already a host of useful and interesting applications have sprung up to service it.
The fall out that the music industry has been experiencing is nothing compared to whats about to happen across several industries.
The New York Times is not going to go out of business. But it's going to go through profound changes if it is to survive. You will always be able to get your hands on a newspaper, or books. But in the future they will be scarce, and expensive. And that is a good thing. How many forests do we cut down every year just to read our horoscope and then throw the paper away? No distributors of content is immune. If books and Cd's are obsolete can DVDs be far behind?
How about TV shows? Content that can be broken down and transmitted digitally no longer needs the cable company's for distribution. Now that movies and TV shows can be stored in a hard drive on a network why do I need a programmer in Manhattan to tell me when to watch Desperate Housewives?
Ever year computer manufacturers make the PC faster stronger and with more hard drive. But do we need that? Most people don't. They surf the Internet, read the paper, and e-mail. Why do they need faster and better? And as cloud computing grows more popular and gets better, you won't need to buy proprietary software, like Photoshop. If you want to edit your photo's, log on to your network and use their software. Need to write that term paper? Go to Google Document, where you can write and store it for free.
The big guys see this coming and are positioning themselves accordingly. Apple, Google, even Microsoft are writing applications or building networks for this coming age of network computing.
As technology expands it will be interesting to see what may come to supplant the screen. Imagine holograms or some projection devise to display movies or TV shows. Then you could have a small devise, an iPod, for instance project your movie onto a vacant Surface.
Apple is the one company that has been moving in this direction. Even tho the demise of the personal computer can not be a good thing for a company that makes the Mac, it can not afford to be caught unawares. And therefor look to Apple to come up with a devise that makes use of the network and cloud computing. Actually Apple is moving in the direction of not just the appliance but of building the network as well.