Linked by Joshua Boyles on Mon 9th Jun 2003 16:45 UTC
This entire article is written as a proposal to a coprporation for a new, very unique computing system. Please offer criticism and suggestions to improve the system, and tell me whether you think it could work. What exactly is the "Edge Computing System" And more importantly, why would I want to go to the trouble of developing it? The Edge Computing System is just that, an entire system, not just a new type of computer or new software suite. The Edge is the means by which you can have your personal computer with you at all times.
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The first problem I see with this is the issue of security. I am not going to stick a storage device containing my personal data in someone else's computer, there's too much risk of trojans. Technologies such as Palladium/TCPA have the potential to offer some solutions to this problem, if you trust them (and I don't).
Computer prices are constantly falling. Even by Australian standards hand-held computers such as the iPaQ are becoming quite affordable, and are more usable for editing files on the go (I've written a magazine article on an iPaQ). Laptops are constantly getting cheaper, lighter and more powerful. 10 years ago it was possible to purchase a new laptop and a new car and have the car be cheaper! Now there are schemes in place to offer cheap laptops in countries such as Thailand which will have significant flow-on affects to first-world countries. I anticipate that in the near future a cheap laptop will cost the same as a good bottle of Whiskey or Champagne!
I expect laptop and hand-held computers to become so cheap that big corporations will regard them as disposable items rather than as assets. When they are 12 months old they will be disposed of if they have anything slightly wrong with them or if there is a better model. If the issues of doing a quick install on a laptop with full hardware support are adequately solved (NB there's some money to be made in this area) then corporations may make it a policy to just give all employees a new laptop every year and let them keep it at the end of the year. This will flood the market with hardly-used second-hand laptops which will make prices really nice for those of us who don't need the latest laptop to run Linux.
I expect falling prices of laptops and hand-held computers to kill the market for the current Internet cafe business model. I expect that future Internet cafe's will have a wireless hub and a large number of power sockets, and no other high-tech facilities. Incidentally I used to part-own and run Australia's longest-running (at the time) Internet cafe, so I have some confidence in my ability to predict the Internet cafe market.