Got to agree with Denys, here.  IMNSHO, two things stand out:
1.  People Want enough power on their desks to conveniently do
word processing, spread sheets and a FEW other minor
applications.
2.  They want to be connected to he company intranet and/or the
Internet to get information from the enterprise's mini, mainframe
or whatever.

The simplest, most cost effective way to do the above will be the
desk top PC AND some kind of remote hook up a la Internet and
five
years won't change this.  MAYBE ne technology will allow it to be
effectively wireless at some point, but not in five years.  Voice
recognition?.  Probably, but this requires lots of power on the
desktop.

Happy (desktop, or laptop) computing.

Nick D.



Denys Beauchemin wrote:
>
> X-no-Archive:yes
> Gentle HP 3000 List Members,
> I wrote a long answer to Wirt's post, and then opted not to send it.
>  Instead, I just make the following two quick points:
>
> Point 1: The current state of affairs.
> The low-cost PC's, some approaching $500, doomed the NC before the latter
> even got off the ground.  However the PC makers are not making much profit
> on these low-end boxes, so they will sell you anything else they can.
>
> The problem for PC makers is that PC's are now too powerful.  The high-end
> PC's are running over 1500 MIPS and there is no slackening of the pace of
> progress.  We have now reached the point where the vast majority of PC
> users do not need the newest, fastest PC's.  They are very satisfied with
> the 300, 350 and 400 Pentium II boxes and just cannot justify anything
> faster.  We have come a long way from the 486s trying desperately to run
> Windows 95 on 8MB.  The latest crop of high-end systems are 450 MHz Pentium
> II with 64 or 128 MB of SDRAM on a 100MHz motherboard, 18 GB of UltraDMA
> disk drive, a third generation DVD-ROM or a 40X CD-ROM and an AGP video
> card with 4 or 8 MB DRAM.  Starting Microsoft Word takes 4 seconds or less.
>  How do you justify getting a 500 or 600 MHz box next year?  The
> applications that require these systems are just not there. Right now,
> about the only things, apart from games, that can draw some benefits from
> higher speed machines are voice recognition and graphics packages such as
> CAD or imaging.  And this is what has the PC makers worried and this is why
> they are looking to other areas to increase their profit margins.
>
> Point 2: The way Larry Ellison wants it to be.
> I noticed that in all the articles I read about NC and network-centric
> computing, the database mentioned is always Oracle.  Larry Ellison would
> dearly love to be the successor to Bill Gates.  He just wants people to
> store all their data on large servers running Oracle instances.  SUN would
> love to have all these large servers be SUN machines and simply watch the
> PC be replaced by the NC.
>
> When the first PC's were introduced in the early 80's, a lot of people had
> an oh-hum attitude about them.  Everybody in the business at the time, just
> looked on these things as mere toys. No one ever figured they would one day
> threaten the dominion of the mainframe and the minis.  That reminded me of
> the introduction of the mini-computer over a decade before.  In those days,
> the mainframe guys looked on the mini-computers as mere toys.  They never
> figured the minis would one day threaten the supremacy of the mainframes.
>  The French have a saying about this: "Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme
> chose."
>
> When the mini really took off, everyone predicted the "inevitable" demise
> of the mainframe.  Didn't happen.  When the PC's took off and networking
> became fashionable, everyone predicted the "inevitable" demise of the minis
> and those dinosaurish mainframe.  Again, didn't happen.  When the NC's
> started (but didn't take off), Larry Ellison and his cronies, predicted the
> demise of the PC.  Guess what, didn't happen.
>
> We'll talk again in 5 years.
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Denys. . .
>
> Denys Beauchemin
> HICOMP America, Inc.
> (800) 323-8863  (281) 288-7438         Fax: (281) 355-6879
> denys at hicomp.com                             www.hicomp.com
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From:   Wirt Atmar [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent:   Friday, 27 November, 1998 2:24 PM
> To:     [log in to unmask]
> Subject:        The end of the PC
>
> There is another one of these articles on the web that essentially predicts
> the end of the PC -- at least as a standalone processor. As I have
> mentioned
> before, I rather strongly agree with this prediction, and have for some
> time.
> The best place to process and retrieve data is -- and always has been -- on
> the host, particularly so in a commercial environment.
>
> This particular article is at:
>
>      http://www.abcnews.com:80/sections/tech/CNET/cnet_pcnc981125.html
>
> It's worth reading twice, in order to let the weight of what these people
> are
> saying sink in. A year ago, Michael Dell said that he was absolutely
> opposed
> to the idea of a PC being used as a terminal. Now, Dell is wholeheartedly
> embracing the notion of a network/terminal computer, probably for no other
> reason than the handwriting is on the wall, written plainly enough that it
> can't be ignored.
>
> The reason that Michael Dell (and others) have been so opposed to the idea
> of
> PCs being used as simple terminals (whether web-based or not) is that such
> a
> move puts a greater premium on low cost, where margins are extremely thin
> for
> the PC manufacturers, than it does on constantly increasing performance in
> the
> devices themselves. The PC only has to be fast enough to create its various
> displays sufficiently quickly.
>
> Wirt Atmar