I've Seen the Future of Computing: It's a Screen.

[ Thanks to Jason Perlow for this link. ]

"The Screen is what I believe the future end-state for personal computing will eventually become, likely within the next 10 years, or possibly even less, due to the commoditization of hypervisor virtualization technology combined with a renaissance of the centralized computing paradigm (the mainframe never died folks, he was just sleeping and waiting for this moment to arrive) and a maturation in virtual infrastructure management platforms. These otherwise enterprise-targeted technologies will will trickle down to the end-user via the standardization of rich desktop delivery thin-client protocols (such as Novell's Compiz-enabled NOMAD for Linux RDP or Red Hat's SPICE), low-power device chipsets, broadband and high-speed wireless deployments, and adoption of High Definition/Digital TV.

"Okay, forget the buzzword bingo for a minute. What is The Screen? I don't think it has been well defined what the interface or the experience really is going to look like, but I have a very good idea. Certainly, I'm not expecting anything along the lines of Minority Report or even something like Microsoft's "Surface", although it's certainly possible that some day, people might use UIs like that for certain niche applications. Initially, early versions of The Screen will almost certainly look very much like the platforms you use now -- Windows, Mac, and definitely Linux.

"The only difference is you won't own the computing hardware it runs on -- all you'll really need is a screen (an HDTV with HDMI inputs) mouse, keyboard and broadband, and you'll be buying your computing services like a utility, just like you pay your electric or Cable TV bill today. And like your Cable TV bill, you'll subscribe to computing "Channels", complete with applications and hosted data, with balls to the wall clouded backup services to match."

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