The laptop will be obsolete by 2020 and will be as archaic as a Discman from 1984 is today.

Written by Rejean Bourgault on Samedi, 11 Juillet 2009 20:35

We could have written the title for this article in many different ways: “My iPhone, Blackberry and my G1 would have been the size of the Pentagon in 1984...” or “My computer will be dead by 2020”.  

You’re probably wondering, what do we mean by that? Basically we are saying that the form factor of the computer, both laptop and desktop as you know them today will be totally obsolete by 2020. Computers will be as archaic, in many ways, as a Sony Discman that was introduced in 1984 is archaic today. Even today, just look at your laptop (unless you’re using one of those small form factor netbook), it is so big compared to a Smartphone. Why do you need a Laptop?

In the future, you will only need a powerful Smartphone type of device for all your computing needs. You will carry around your iPhone, Blackberry, G1 or Pre wherever you want. Once you arrive at the office or at home, you will simply put down the device on your desk and you’ll have access wirelessly to a keyboard, a mouse and a flat screen, using technologies such as Wireless HDMI or Ultra Wide Band (UWB) for the Flat Screen.  Those devices (screen, keyboard and mouse), will be purely “dumb” devices and they will be able to interact with any type of device that you bring close enough. (*)

Think about the beauty of this evolution. The other day, as I do a few times a week, I was biking to the office, a 42 Km ride each way. Normally, I leave on Monday am, with my car and my bike in the trunk, bike back home Monday evening (leaving the car at the office location downtown) and bike back to the office on Tuesday morning. The main reasons to do this, versus biking back and forth the same day is three fold; first, the distance of 84 Km in a day could be sometimes exhausting, second, I might need the car to visit customers who are located outside of the downtown area during the day, but, to be honest, the real reason is that I want to have my laptop with me at the office and I don’t want to carry it on my bike. But... I always carry my Blackberry with me and I suddenly realized last week the power of that little device.

Now, let’s compare my Blackberry’s “bike ride” as just explained today in 2009 with all the tools incorporated in this little device with a similar bike ride that would have been done in 1984. How big my back pack should have been and how heavy would it have been to carry the same quantity of features? Back then, you would need some of the first generation cellular phone weighting close to 1.5Kg. Then, you would have to add a camera, again quite bulky and weighting around 1Kg. Next item is the agenda and notepad, back then I was using a whole size binder with “Timetext” priority management tool… (another kilogram easily). Add to this a Rolodex with all my business cards (one kilogram again), my Sony Discman with one CD and about 15 songs (more than a kilo), then all my preferred CDs, a computer (well… add 10 kilos easily), a calculator, then what about all the reference books, newspapers, dictionaries, encyclopaedia and games… WOW, that would easily be the size of the Pentagon!

Then I realize my back pack could just not hold all of this. Today, my Blackberry gives me all of the features mentioned above in a small compact device and it gives me access, with Internet browsing, to any website, globally. I can Google whatever I want, wherever I want. This is truly powerful.

But wait a minute, we are in 2009, and I still have to carry with me my laptop if I want to be effective and productive. Why don’t my office, home, Starbucks, and my customers / suppliers site, provide me with devices such as wireless keyboard, mouse and flat screen? So, wherever I would go, I could have all the tools I want with me! Then, the PC as we know it today would really be dead.

Is this feasible? Absolutely. All the technologies needed to make this possible are coming together. Memory chips are getting more powerful; just look at the evolution in capacity of USB memory sticks in the past few years. Look at camera phones that boast 7 megapixels camera and more. Look at the evolution of silicon chips; for instance Intel plans to soon introduce an “80 core PC”, probably around the 2011-2014 timeframe that is 80 times the power of most computers in the market today (20 or 40 times if you have a quad or dual core), as announced in San Francisco at the Gartner Symposium conference in 2007. Wireless keyboard and mouse are already available and widely in use. Wireless HDTVs have already been introduced in late 2007 by Samsung and in 2008 at the CES by Westinghouse (http://ces.cnet.com/8301-13855_1-9839734-67.html).

So for sure, Apple (iPhone), RIM (Blackberry), HTC (Hero/Diamond), Palm (Pre) and the others are coming in force and they are pushing Dell, HP, Lenovo, Toshiba and many other PC manufacturers to rethink their entire strategy. Software companies like Microsoft, Google and IBM will do everything to integrate their software in those devices as well. The “Internet cloud”, also referred to as “cloud computing”, is also getting more and more powerful. Companies like Google are developing powerful applications in the cloud such as Google Docs, which reduces the need of storing information on your device and putting more power to the “net”. We can foresee that in the longer run, more applications and even operating systems could be run from the cloud.

The next 10 years of evolution will be amazing. Soon, I will be able to travel back and forth to the office on my Bike, carrying only my Blackberry… without having to worry about my laptop. My briefcase will be smaller than ever when I have to go to a customer meeting as well… People will have more flexibility as they will not have to carry their heavy laptop. This will imply less back pain, hence, less time in Physiotherapy. This will give more time for family bike rides then… I let you imagine the rest!

(*) Note: Of course, you could also have, as seen in some futuristic view, a virtual keyboard, mouse and screen that are projected on any surface.

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