Evolution of the PC – Where are we headed?

I’m reading In Search of Stupidity: Over 20 Years of High-Tech Marketing Disasters these days which talks about some high profile and some not to high profile blunders in the early days of the tech industry. It feels so unreal to read about the early incarnations of the ‘computer’, which supported at most 640KB and were heavy enough to induce back pains.

I remember seeing and touching some of these old dinosaurs, and it’s amazing how fast we’ve progressed. I was wondering what people 20-30 years down the line will think of our Macbook Pros, our Netbooks and our HP Dragons. I wonder how quaint our operating systems and software will look to them.

Even today we can see change happening as the concept of the PC being the sole repository for everything is becoming antiquated as more and more things are getting pushed to the cloud. I’m really impressed by some of Microsoft’s new Live services, particularly Live Mesh. It will be interesting to see what role Windows 7 plays in this transition of everything to the Web and how Windows as an operating system will evolve over the decades.

Exciting times indeed.

Rant ends here. Now I’m going to enjoy spring break!