>Jennifer writes:

>> Wirt Atmar wrote in message ...
>>  >There is another one of these articles on the web that essentially
>predicts
>>  >the end of the PC -- at least as a standalone processor.
>
>>  I think the PC will change substantially, but it's extremely
premature, IMO
>>  to predict its demise. You could just as easily predict the demise
of UNIX
>>  or Cobol (been there, as I recall ), since all things eventually
come to
>>  an end. The question is how LONG before we put little x's over the
PC's
>>  proverbial eyeballs.
>
>Let me say that I wasn't predicting the end of the PC, regardless of
the
>provocative subject title of this thread. Indeed, like almost every
other
>successful evolutionary event, the persistence of the PC is now
essentially
>guaranteed. There is very little chance that anything will come along
and
>unseat the PC in the next 25 years. Inertia alone will carry
Windows-based PCs
>into the future for at least that period of time.
>
>What is being predicted is the end of the push towards "a mainframe on
every
>desk" phase of PC usage. Larry Ellison said the same thing last week
when he
>said, "The internet changes everything."
>
>The PC is rapidly pushing on towards become a gateway to information,
not an
>isolated repository of information in and of itself.
>
>That's not only reasonable, such usage also lowers support costs
dramatically
>and much increases both reliability and ease of use.

Wirt,

I must respectfully disagree. I do not think that the standalone PC will
disappear. While the Internet is a great distraction, it's turning into
an online catalog/store. Like one big shopping channel with less and
less real information, with the obvious exception of this list of
course.

Small home businesses will still need local storage. Who would you trust
to backup and archive your data for you. Home users will want to
download their camera's pictures to their PC's to view and print. We
could also use our non-linear video editor to reorganize our home
videos. These are just a few examples.

What about bandwidth to the Internet? We are always hungry for more
bandwidth. While it is fairly easy to upgrade one's own PC for more CPU,
disk storage and I/O bandwidth, it's another to upgrade the external
utilities (cable, phone, etc) infrastructure. We (at least in Cleveland
area) do not, and will not for a few more years, have cable modems. We
cannot get ADSL, and some suburbs still can't get ISDN. These things
move slowly.

But from my own point of view, I like having the control. Over the
storage and backup. I wouldn't want to buy storage from an ISP if I only
had an NC. That's a recipe for being nickel and dimed to death.

John Zoltak
North American Mfg Co