I am not seeking claim that tomorrow’s technology is going to be exactly as it is today, because obviously that would not be the case. What I will say though is that the technology that we are seeing come out right now is going to vastly change how we use it in the future.
From time to time I’ll talk to people in the industry as well perform my own research on newer technologies, programs, software, operating systems, etc.. To get an idea of what the technology future will look like. Needless to say, I’ve been pleasantly surprised with the way things are progressing and I know it’s going to be a big change for a lot of people.
In this blog entry I will go over three sub points that will cover mobile advances, operating systems, and a bit about cloud technologies.
The mobile way
Phones are no longer phones! This is something that everyone truly needs to understand. Phones today have vastly changed from how we used them previously. You don’t use your mobile phone anymore just to call someone. Its used to make calls, send a text message, take a picture and send that picture to someone, to run your are excel application, word document, to link up to your twitter account on line, to browse the web, so on and so forth. These devices have greatly revolutionized how we communicate both with people and data.
So what is this mobile way? Well simply put its how you interact with information. Think about the average desktop computer user. What is it that they do? They will check email, browse the internet, open office applications to write and store information… Is that it? More or less it is. So when you look at this, a question is raised. Why do these individuals need a complex operating system and software? The answer of course is that they don’t. They need basic tools and access to the web as well as their information.
Of course there will always be a market for those with specialized needs such as software developers, architects (using CAD software) and the like. For these people the mobile way may not work as their information is large, and requires the use of sophisticated tools. But, for that person that does not need anything advanced this will be the way (especially if they are on the go a lot).
So where do I see this going then? What I see happening is software companies starting to realize that mobile technology is going to be the wave of the future. Applications that users will require on a regular basis will no longer be stand alone on a desktop (unless of course it’s a specialized tool), but rather built either entirely online or have a mobile link. What this will mean then is when you have your smart device you’ll be able to interact with your data (as it will all be online and stored in a virtual hard drive), open files, create files, launch your browser, etc… all on your “phone”. You will have direct access to your files anywhere that you go including your home computer. In other words you can think of it like this, no matter where you are as long as you have access to the web your information will be synced to all your devices and accessible.
What is an operating system?
I’m not going to go into a lecture about exactly what an operating system is. My point here is just to explore how the usage of an OS will change. A lot people probably do know what an OS is, for those that do not, it’s the software that interacts with your computers hardware (more to it than that, but that’s the basics). Windows of course has the market on operating systems and will probably continue to have it for a while yet.
In any case because I see a paradigm shift to mobile devices allowing people to interact with their files, and their information all on the web, the use of an advanced operating system will slowly fade out. Now once again I’m not talking about people with specific specialized needs as there will always be those people that do need an advanced operating system. But with the rise of many different OS’s(windows, mac, linux, etc…) users will be given a choice on what to use.
Having that choice and if OS’s are made simple to install (Linux is slowly getting there) people will be able to install a new OS for free (many Linux distributions for example are free). The operating system may not be anything special, but as long as it gives you access to the web then your set!
That cloud looks like an elephant!
Ever looked up the clouds and thought it looked like something... Well that really has nothing to do with this, but there is an up and coming term floating around called cloud computing and cloud services, and more less what that means is the Internet.
In effect you have companies that have created services that are useful. These services interact with some set of information and perform actions on them. OK great, so now what? Well now you want to be able to use those services to save you and your company time/money. You are now working in the cloud… using someone else’s service, to perform your task. BTW good job! You just were promoted because you saved your company thousands!
Here in an example of using the cloud. Take the cost of software and hardware for a small business. I personally know how much it takes and how much it costs to run a small business as far as technology is concerned. If you have say three servers, 25 computers and the servers are running windows server, exchange server, and you have a firewall, you have switches, you have software for antivirus, spam filters, etc.. All these things combined will cost tens of thousands of dollars to initially get setup and yearly for someone to manage all that will also be tens of thousands of dollars.
What is the point in spending all that money and all the time when you can use services from someone else (such as amazon or google)? This is what the cloud is. And the way that I see technology going with mobile devices, with operating systems, how everything’s going to be on the web and at your fingertips… all that data is already floating around in the cloud so why not use it?
All in all I don’t think we’re that far off from all of this now. I see companies starting to use cloud services much more, mobile devices becoming smarter and more people are using them. At some Point I could see hotels having docking stations where you can in essence dock your phone and connect to a display, a keyboard and mouse (you would have this in your home as well).
The net and mobile devices will mesh together and everything will be in the cloud. So keep looking into the sky and maybe you’ll see something white and fluffy that looks like you one day.
