Former Microsoft bloke thinks world is done with the PC

Fudzilla ^ | Thursday, 08 March 2012 17:45 | Nick Farell

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Ray Ozzie admits that Microsoft has been left behind

The man who succeeded Bill Gates as Microsoft top visionary, believes the world has moved past the personal computer.

Ray Ozzie, said that Microsoft could be left behind because it did not see this quick enough. He thinks that the PC has been nudged aside by powerful phones and tablets running Apple and Google software. He said that people should not argue about 'are we in a post-PC world?' when we already are. He said that did not mean the PC died we just call them something else.

Ozzie was making his first public comments on Microsoft since stepping down from the tech giant abruptly in 2010.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

The Gamers still need frames to holld their Graphics cards....

They are a little too big and Hot for small mobile devices.

Gaming Consoles are still pretty weak.

[driftdiver]

Those tablets cannot be made compliant with govt security regulations, so good luck.

They want everyone to go to a cloud based model where you pay for the software monthly. I’m using Microsoft CRM like that, where they routinely overcharge me.

[Jonty30]

I don’t think Microsoft is quite done yet. I’m not prepared to eulogize the company just yet.

But they do have some work cut out for it.

[cuban leaf]

We lost our internet access five months ago. I used to spend most of my time at home on the computer. I even created some videos for Youtube using some excellent Adobe software.

Since I still played a game called “Command and Conquer” from time to time I left the computer on 24/7. But I turned it off one day because I hadn’t used it in a week.

It went four months before I got the urge to play the game and I turned the thing on.

I now realize that if you take away the internet and games, There is very little reason to have a home computer, beyond doing your taxes and a few other minor things.

I say this as a person who has been in IT since 1983 and I have built all my own computers since my first 486 with a 250 mb hard drive and windows 3.1.

[for-q-clinton]

SO says the man who completely missed this coming. I’m not sure I’d put much stock in his opinion.

[BikerJoe]

I need as much screen real-estate as I can get and a real keyboard. Mobile devices have a way to go to get me that.

...and there are still plenty of places where you can’t reach the cloud without tethering at an effective 56k, so I also want standalone capability.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

My own vision of the future is an entirely modular computer system that is cumulative. That is, the computer begins with a small module about the size of a cell phone. By itself it can perform a bunch of functions.

Add a second, different type of module to it, and it becomes much more powerful, and able to do many other things. As you keep adding different modules, it becomes more and more functional.

The group of modules can also to some extent work while physically apart from each other, via Wifi, or plug into ever larger systems, such as cars, business mainframes, whatever.

[RJS1950]

PCs and laptops aren’t going anywhere. Tablets are fine for higher level corporate weasels who don’t have to perform much real work that requires a laptop or PC. Try using a small tablet to effectively perform the tasks of say a systems analyst, software developer or even an administrative assistant. The need to type and input data hasn’t gone away. If you only work with one or two documents at a time or you don’t need to do any high intensity processing work then spend all that money on a tablet.

[Jonty30]

As I understand it, you’d still have that.

Your phone will be your computer. When you get home, you’d dock it and access a monitor, keyboard, printer and stuff, for that large real estate.

When you’re mobile, you’d still be able to do everything that you can do on a desktop. You wouldn’t, if you didn’t want to, stop what you’re doing just because you’re away from the desktop.

[nagdt]

I work in a virtual home office and have 3 computers. 2 desktop PC’s and a laptop. HATE HATE HATE laptops and small systems. Love the big screen, ergo keyboards, trackball mouse, voip phone system.

I wish EVERYTHING was wireless though. The rats nest of wires and power strips behind my desk is disgusting.

[CommieCutter]

What about for programming?

[Westbrook]

If all you do with a computer is read email, surf the web, and read facebook and twitter, well, yeah.

But if you want to do any serious work, like software development, financial analysis, circuit design, medicine, video processing, audio processing, CAD/CAM, real-time processing, astral or nuclear physics development, or chemical engineering, you will need a big screen with high resolution, lots of CPU power, terabytes of local storage, multi-gigabytes of memory, and a honkin’ power supply to drive it all.

None of these things is available in any hand-held device of which I am aware.

I see the typical non-technical PC morphing into the hand-held appliance, and the high-end PC morphing into the workstation.

But the PC, per-se, is not going away, and Microsoft, which supports serious working applications in all the abovementioned fields, isn’t going away, either.

[Osage Orange]

The PC has made me a better communicator. No doubt about it.

The PC has afforded me the opportunity to have a couple extra ways to make money. One of them has made all the difference for me.

I used to play some games on it...but they bored me.

I can watch my favorite sports teams on the PC.

And finally the PC connected me up with like-minded people...on FR

[BikerJoe]

As I understand it, you’d still have that. Your phone will be your computer. When you get home, you’d dock it and access a monitor, keyboard, printer and stuff, for that large real estate. When you’re mobile, you’d still be able to do everything that you can do on a desktop. You wouldn’t, if you didn’t want to, stop what you’re doing just because you’re away from the desktop.

That'll all be fine, but I think we're 3 to 5 years away from that capability.

[kosciusko51]

The rats nest of wires and power strips behind my desk is disgusting.

I know what you mean. I recently had my home office renovated, and had to remove and reinstall all of the cables. But this time, I laid out the cables and zip-tied the long runs together, and looped and zip-tied the excess cable near one end or the other. Much less of a rat's nets now.

[Jonty30]

I agree that we’re not quite there yet. When quad-processor phones become available, we’ll have the hardware capability to do that.

But getting people to buy into that will take time.

[martin_fierro]

He said that did not mean the PC died we just call them something else.

Yeah: Linux Boxes.

[RightOnline]

You’re really straying out of “PC” territory there and well into full-on workstation territory....

....which is a point missed by most on this thread, so don’t feel bad about it. The man is right: we’re in a post-PC world where most people....MOST....can do all they need to do on a tablet or smartphone.

Power users still need workstations. For those reading this that insist they do the heavy lifting with a desktop PC, let me remind you that your state of the art desktop today is FAR more powerful than very high-dollar workstations of, say, 5-6 years ago (maybe less, actually).

[Little Ray]

PCs aren’t done if you want to do actual WORK - documents, spreadsheets, etc. Tablets and phones are nice for viewing data, but almost useless for manipulating it.