Continuing in the trend of articles about the future of IT and how we’re in such an infant stage, I read a great post today by Nicholas Carr. (Yes, that Nicholas Carr who wrote “Does IT matter?).
The premise of the article is that worldwide server sales make a lot of money for companies like Dell and HP. However, the emerging trends of virtualization and the use of component parts and blades is cutting sales. The idea is simple: If I can run 5 virtual machine on one piece of hardware (a single computer), then I do not need 5 real computers. I will need great horsepower on the single real machine, but that’s less expensive than more real machines.
I envision a future where computing space/time is rented much like we rent hosting space and e-mail service to companies now. Frankly, I’d like to have the space back on my desk, in my house, etc and just subscribe to a computing service. This will require very high bandwidth and near zero latency, but MAN it would be great.
Imagine using your computer for word processing, surfing the Net, and e-mails. This is the idea behind eMachines and the sub-$500 home PC. Instead of buying the PC, what if one could pay $10/mo to rent the monitor, keyboard, and mouse. No need for the computer at all. The display comes through the Net connection. If one wants to add new programs, then download them to your virtual home PC — a virtual machine hosted at a place like EV1Servers.
An alternate scenario — I’m a hardcore gamer and want to play the latest MMORPG like WOW. I would get everything the previous user receives and a headset, better screen, and more processing power to see the graphics even better. Price — let’s say $50/mo including the game.
The costs are not achievable yet. But they will be one day.
