Cloud Computing. The End of The Desktop.
Let me clarify, the small population of people who do heavy editing on Photoshop, render videos on Final Cut, and other specific tasks, still need their local machine to handle running all of these tasks. That small population is however growing ever smaller. When we have YouTube allowing us to do small video cuts online on and services such as Avairy and Picknik to do simple image edits, the casual user no longer has to deal with heavy, complicated desktop software. Google is one of the main proponents of this shift with their Chrome Netbook, which runs completely on the web. Taking the next step from “Netbooks”, the Google netbook does away with the operating system, replacing it with the Chrome web browser. The realm of online applications is rapidly growing, while desktop applications are slowly dying. Can you remember the last time you bought a CD from the store to install an application? Other than maybe Microsoft Office, chances are you haven’t.
Computer manufacturers will quickly realize that placing importance on hardware specs is not the future. There is a reason the iPad has met so much success. It is not because of the device’s astoundingly futuristic internal hardware. It is because of its ease of use, form factor, and quick accessibility to the web. These low-powered tablets and laptops will be the future because their low cost will undercut any traditional alternative, and when almost all of your computing is spent online there is no reason not to buy one.
People will argue that there will always be a need for local machines. But I believe that even those heavy duty tasks will soon be ported to the web. Photoshop already has their online web editor which could soon become full featured. And even video games which are at the forefront of the push for better graphics capabilities are being stopped in their tracks by two things. One, the casual gamer audience is growing, and they are consistently choosing mobile-phone, flash, and Facebook games over their more complicated, hardware intensive counterparts. Two, users can already stream games to their computer via services such as OnLive. As the library of games for OnLive increases, the market for desktop gaming will diminish as anyone on a high speed connection can play games once only reserved for high performance machines.
The next generation of computing is rapidly approaching and the desktop computer no longer holds the central position it once did. We have already seen the near death of the desktop, monitor, keyboard, mouse setup, in favor of Laptops. It is only a short time until high performance and internal hardware are no longer relevant.

