These two articles today from Arrington and Siegler were almost as funny as the Daily Show was last night. Why Desktop Touch Screens Don’t Really Work Well For Humans
10/GUI: One Very Slick Desktop Multi-Touch Concept (Video)
Seriously? People don’t want vertical touch screens? This is a revelation? And the future of touch computers is an architect’s table and the Microsoft Surface? What are you smoking?
Every bit of sales data over the last five years suggests that the future of all computing is mobile. That’s why Apple focuses on laptops and the iPhone and is on the heels of a tablet announcement. I do not, and neither does anyone else who is paying attention, predict a future that includes any sort of giant bulky desktop system that won’t fit into the back of a Volkswagen.
Maybe, maybe the desktop computer will still be around in ten years as a specialty item for companies that need massive computing power, like 3D artists and the like. Even they will most likely use some variant of a small form factor machine that is plugged into a higher-power rack server-type thing via LightPeak. Everyone else, particularly on the consumer side, will own a laptop as their bulkiest computer, or more likely some sort of tablet device. Everything else they will do with their phone.
And none of those machines will be running Microsoft anything. By then, Microsoft will be relegated to the specialty business market. They’ve already blown the mobile space; they are not making headway into the Internet Cloud space (especially after this week); and they’ve failed utterly in the consumer electronic space. As soon as the money runs out, Microsoft will do what all big companies who are past their prime do: they will retreat into the only core business that still makes money (servers and boring business data stuff), and become increasingly irrelevant.
Seriously, TechCrunch. Stick to reporting. Predicting the future is not your strong suit. HP and Microsoft are not shaping the future. If you really want to predict the future, just do what everyone else does. Wait for Apple or Google to announce something new and assume everyone else will copy it.
