The End of the Desktop?

'Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, writing for ComputerWorld :

Of course, at one time, to get any work done with a computer, you
first had to learn a lot, about computers, operating systems, commands
and more. Eventually, "friendly" became the most important adverb in
computing circles, and we've reached the point in user-friendliness
that people don't even talk about it anymore. Today, Google has shown
with its Chrome OS that most of us can pretty much do anything we need
to do on a computer with just a web browser. But Google's path is not
Microsoft's path. Instead, it's moving us first to Windows as desktop
as a service (DaaS) via Microsoft Managed Desktop (MMD). This bundles
Windows 10 Enterprise, Office 365 and Enterprise Mobility + Security
and cloud-based system management into Microsoft 365 Enterprise.

The next step, Windows Virtual Desktop, enables companies to
virtualize Windows 7 and 10, Office 365 ProPlus apps and other
third-party applications on Azure-based virtual machines. If all goes
well, you'll be able to subscribe to Windows Virtual Desktop this
fall. Of course, Virtual Desktop is a play for business users -- for
now. I expect Virtual Desktop to be offered to consumers in 2020. By
2025, Windows as an actual desktop operating system will be a niche
product. Sound crazy? Uh, you do know that Microsoft already really,
really wants you to "rent" Office 365 rather than buy Office 2019,
don't you?

But what about games, you say? We'll always have Windows for games!
Will we? Google, with its Google Stadia gaming cloud service, is
betting we're ready to move our games to the cloud as well. It's no
pipe dream. Valve has been doing pretty well for years now with its
Steam variation on this theme. So where is all this taking us? I see a
world where the PC desktop disappears for all but a few. Most of us
will be writing our documents, filling out our spreadsheets and doing
whatever else we now do on our PCs via cloud-based applications on
smart terminals running Chrome OS or Windows Lite. If you want a
"real" PC, your choices are going to be Linux or macOS.'

-- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/19/04/04/1724248

Cheers, Peter
-- 
Peter Reutemann
Dept. of Computer Science
University of Waikato, NZ
+64 (7) 858-5174
http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/
http://www.data-mining.co.nz/
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