Are Network Computers a revenge effect on PCs which have become too cumbersome, too flabby, too slow with applications simply too big? Or is it simply another way of commerce selling us the same technology?
As far as I can see, the excitement about NCs is really a group of companies who see them as a way of unseating Microsoft. So I approach the whole idea with a lot of skepticism. Probably the best use would be a household with lots of bandwidth and maybe one or two PCs already and lots of people who wanted to be online at the same time. You could have these additional units which would enable you to get online quickly, but I think very few people would trust these devices for essential files. I have a lot of skepticism about people working this way for anything other than games.
One thing that struck me about PCs and their negative aspects is that in a positive way they have generated all sorts of new industries such as the computer magazine industry http://www.pcw.vnu.co.uk and consultancy.
Well it certainly helps me write books! Probably we are part of
the same industry in helping people manage with new technology.
But what's interesting is the demand for human help has increased
rather than decreased as the software applications have become
supposedly more advanced and sophisticated. And that's consistent
with my argument that more advanced technology needs greater vigilance,
greater care. There are more things that can go wrong when something
is supposedly designed to be easier to operate. So there have
to be more people behind the scenes or in reserve to help you
when that software malfunctions. It's like automobiles: 75 years
ago, you could fix a lot more on your own car and people were
known to take apart their car and put it back together just to
see how it worked. By the measure of what makes a car good today
they were terrible cars but they were easy to fix and they were
simple.
And the other strange thing to emerge in computing is the emergence
of never ending beta software. Microsoft puts versions of its
software for people to download so people become guinea pigs on
a global scale. There never seems to be a finished version.
http://www.microsoft.com/
But Microsoft http://www.microsoft.com at some point needs to produce something it can sell. You're right, however, they are using these to get people to do a lot of development work for free. What's really intriguing to me is going over to the strategy of an annual model change for operating systems, and there are very interesting parallels with the history of the automobile industry. Particularly Sloan's idea at General Motors http://www.saturn.com of the frequent, often cosmetic, model changes as a way to stimulate.
There is now a question whether we are in period of real stagnation in the search for important new applications that help people. What we, have I think, is this baroque age of software development. We are moving to different demands.
Are we moving to software with built-in obsolescence?
An engineer I know who designs tennis rackets asked a manufacturer what the most important criterion was when they were evaluating rackets and the answer was that it should not break down in the warranty period.
So the warranty becomes a template or an envelope for designing the product so it becomes very possible for a manufacturer to reduce costs as much as possible but produce a product that will last at least as long as the warranty period. So there is a revenge effect in the warranty periods in that it doesn't help you very much when you go past it.
The manufactures are always looking of ways to reduce costs but that' s different from designing things to fall apart. I don't think they have anything to gain from that - if that were the case then the Yugo http://www.yugo.comha! would be the most successful car in the western world.