Personal cloud will kill PC by 2014
March 12, 2012
The personal cloud will help bring about the move into a post PC age by 2014 according to a report from Gartner.
Cloud computing is hardly a new concept, in fact marketing departments seem to have been wailing about it for ages now. But if analysts at Garnter are to be believed we are still waiting to see the full impact of the person cloud which will bring about the death of the PC as the centre of our affections.
Of course it could be argued that this is aready in the offing with a move to more mobile, accesible devices. Just ask Tim Cook…
The continued growth of personal cloud services are still yet to exert a full effect on the way information is accessed, though is set to change, and quickly.
Instrumental to this is the way that companies shift to deliver applications services to users. Companies such as startup Numecent are already offering innovative services which make full use of the possibilities of the cloud, and analysts reckon further adaptations are needed.
A number of trends will drive the swift replacement of the traditional PC with the personal cloud.
The consumerisation of IT, which has been talked up for some time now, is finally taking full effect. This has meant that many people in a coutry such as England are au fait with cheaply available but relatively powerful devices, whether that be the rise in BYOD trends among employees or the smartphone-clutching hordes of rioters last summer.
The access to high power computing with low power devices is also faciitating the usefulness of cloud applications, removing the need for processor intensive operating systems for example.
Analysts also claims that ’appification’ will take place, with major changes to the way in which apps are designed and delivered.
This will also involve greater choice by users of the types of applications and services that are accessed, with increased opportunity to store a virtual workspace online, as well as, as Gartner ominously puts it, your digital personality.
Alongside the proliferation of mobile devices, and in the UK even faster 4G access available one day, the cloud will mean you will always have access to your personal info.
With all of this there are also concerns over the security of the cloud, and whether the PC will be supplanted by the end of next year is certainly open for debate. But with the increase in mobile computing it is likely that the industry is heading in this direction.
The cloud may be be storage by another exhaustingly hype-laden name, but there are certainly interesting possibilties as the technology finally comes to the fore.