My wife and I had an interesting conversation today spurred by the launch of the new, network sponsored, high-quality streaming media site Hulu. She asked what this meant for the producers & manufacturers of DVD's. Yes, I know that segment is more threatened by streaming movies than television programming of which Hulu is offering both, but since we grew up in a region of Michigan highly dependent on the auto-industry, we're both ultra sensitive about how companies and more importantly employees are going to respond to major paradigm shifts within a given market. From that point on, we chatted about how Blockbuster failed to quickly embrace/acquire/merge with Netflix, and how Netflix needs to quickly respond to the imminent threat posed by AppleTV and the ability to download movies from the iTunes store.
You're probably wondering - why did he paste in a picture from Intel if he's talking about Hulu ? -- The reason I call out Intel is because they are doing exactly what they need to do in order to preempt the industry shift from traditional PC's to more network centric "NetBook" and "NetTop" low cost compute devices. They recognize that the OS's of today are going to need to shift towards the world of compute-cloud and network based operating environments. They aren't going to wait for AMD, Via, Asus or the OLPC-XO to set the standard for what the low cost silicon generation of PC's is going to be.
Combining the low cost chipset/cpu platform with the ever-dropping price of NAND/SSD storage, the ever increasing bandwidth and desire for low-power alternatives should make Diamondville based NetTops a terrific platform for enterprise & consumers alike. Imagine being able to plug in your Microsoft StartKey (powered by Kidaro ?) - it's all possible - hang on tight.
From where I sit, Intel has a diamond in the rough on their hands - lets turn it into some bling !
2 comments:
First off, what're you doing blogging @ 1am? Get some sleep son!
"They recognize that the OS's of today are going to need to shit towards the"... I didn't know Intel hated on compute-cloud and network based op envs.
Again, this calls out a thought I've been sitting on for awhile now. What does Desktop Engineering look like in a NetTop/NetBook environment when most everything is hosted on the 'net/cloud?
Is this the end of the desktop mgmt function as we know it?
Whoops! Thanks for the editing. Needless to say, Flock's editor doesn't see that as a misspelling.
(Corrected)
In my optimistic view, the role of a Desktop Engineer role will shift from assembling low-level infrastructure components. (OS installs, hardware support, application delivery) into a higher-value function responsible for maintaining a service catalog of subscribable services.
An end to desktop management as we know it should be a very good thing for everyone.
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