The mythical network computer

40% of Korean homes and reportedly 80% of businesses have 50+Mbs fibre connections, and this scenario has not come to pass at all. Here is why:

1) People still want PCs, because there will ALWAYS be occasions to be offline - in which case still want to access to your services and hard drive. Mobilty mitigates against he network computer, even in the face of new hi speed wireless IP transport.

2) No amount of legislation and good intentions will give people comfort that that corporate and personal infomation is 100% safe in the hands of distant third parties. Photos and spreadsheets, perhaps, but stuff like personal adult content and confidential company information is unlikely to ever be resident on network clouds where there is the smallest chance of malicious employee breach.

3) No matter how fast the cloud, the PC bus and the LAN is going to be faster. Simple physics. This shorter distance/greater speed imperitave will necessarily keep certain services within the company or residence.

So - perhaps an increasing use of online services, but to imply we go all the way to the edge, hmmmm....

Amazon, Google and eBay dominate internet hardware

Dateline: 5 September 2009

Why buy cows when all you need is milk? Have you noticed how no-one buys any server hardware anymore? In fact, I can't remember the last time a company or corporation actually shelled out for infrastructure, except for being connected to the 'net. IBM, Dell and HP now only have three customers for their servers - besides the banks and a few other paranoid institutions. Everyone else just ...