The PC is dead

The PC, in its original form, will soon be gone. I’m talking about the desktop PC — the big box with an expansion bus and add-in cards and external keyboard and display.

It’s a good bet that soon personal computing will be done on laptops, netbooks, tablets, smart phones, and your Google TV set(s). And all of those devices will be connected and all will have a “common platform” that will look pretty much the same on every one of them. Intel and a lot of other folks would love to define that platform for you and I have a feeling Android will be a part of it. The “phone” will also be gone with voice just expected to be in all devices.

The upcoming tablets from many suppliers will play to this connected notion including the Cisco Cius, the Avaya Flare, and the Samsung Galaxy tablets.

Paul Otellini, president and CEO of Intel, spoke to this at the recent Intel Developers Forum. He talked about an Intel “transformation” into a company that provides a “full compute stack” of silicon, platform, software, and services. Intel’s acquisition of Wind River last year is certainly part of this plan, as is their acquisition of the Infineon wireless business unit and TI’s cable modem unit.

Security is always a really big issue and it is part of Intel’s plan. Their acquisition of McAfee gives the company a basis for integration of security into CPU hardware, which I think they will do big-time and soon. Otellini also talked about moving security to a “known good” method from the current “known bad.” This is a very interesting idea, but it brings me some concern, because who is going to say what’s good? How much will it cost to join the Intel known-good club?

And, now I think perhaps we are finally at the video phone stage. It has been talked about forever, but now things seem to be in place for you to see the person you are talking to. Bell Labs conducted extensive research and development of videophones, leading to public demonstrations of its trademarked Picturephone product and service in the 1960s, including displays at the 1964 New York World’s Fair. But then the voice service is still pretty lousy on many cell phones, so perhaps I speak too soon – 46 years later.

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Jim Harrison
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