The cloud is big. Amazon (AWS), Google (Cloud Platform), IBM (Cloud) and Microsoft (Azure), among others, have made big bets in the space. Indeed, virtually all of Amazon’s 2017 operating income came from AWS. Alphabet’s former Chairman Eric Schmidt had some important advice for attendees at HIMSS18: "Run to the cloud!"
The thing is, I’m not sure we’re thinking about the cloud quite right yet. As evidence, I want to point to the Blade Shadow PC.
Blade is a France company, and Shadow PC is an app designed specifically for gaming. It offers users a virtual machine, giving them access to a high-end PC that is constantly upgraded.
Gamers always want to have PCs with the fastest processor, best graphics card, and sharpest display. It can get very expensive, and as soon as you’ve upgraded your device, it starts to become outdated. With Shadow, in theory, you’ll always have the latest and best.
Shadow doesn’t even care what device you run it on. Your monthly subscription lets you run it on any device you want (one at a time). You could start a game on your home PC, continue playing on your smartphone while you are taking an Uber to work, then pick up playing it on your work computer (during your breaks, of course). The machine you use is pretty much just needed for the connectivity and the screen.
Shadow has received a lot of media attention. The consensus seems to be that it may not always quite live up to the hype, yet, but it is pretty cool.
Here’s CNET’s review:
I have to admit, I don’t really care about video games, except as a business and cultural phenomena, but the implication of Shadow PC is not so much for video games as it is for everything else we do on devices. As Blade CEO Asher Kagan told The Next Web:
If we can do something to prove this is working for the gamer market, it’ll show it can work for anyone. Gamers are very demanding, they’re very sensitive to latency.
The Wall Street Journal’s David Pierce sees it leading to a new future:
Someday soon, what Uber did for cars and Netflix for TV will happen with computers. Rather than buy a suite of gadgets — a PC, phone, Xbox, etc. — you could just access their features when you need them. They won’t need to be distinct, powerful devices with their own hefty allocations of processor and memory. Instead, you’ll have a single virtual computer with all your data and preferences. You’ll reach for a touch screen when you’re on the go, sit down to a larger one with keyboard and mouse when you’re at your desk. Maybe you’ll have a wall-size one, too.
Similarly, Rob Enderle writes in Computerworld:
Blade Shadow PC has the potential to become a Netflix for PCs but so does Netflix and all the other streaming providers — including Amazon. I expect by 2020 we’ll have a lot of compelling alternatives to a running apps on locally on a PC and that this will drive a trend similar to what happened to Blockbuster and Netflix. The old will give way to the new and we’ll never have to worry about patches, replacing hardware, or even buying apps the way we do now.
Mr. Enderle’s article is headlined “By 2020, we’ll be using Windows in the cloud,” so we’re not just talking about games or apps or websites. We’re talking about operating systems. It takes the idea behind Chromebooks to the next level.
At this point, it might seem that everything will go to the cloud. After all, with cyberthieves getting ever more sophisticated, it almost seems negligent for you to have your own PC or for your company to hosts its own machines. Let the experts worry about hacking and security, about hardware and software upgrades. We only care that things work.
I don’t think it is going to be quite that simple.
I’m old enough to remember mainframe dumb terminals with arcane commands. I’m thus old enough to remember when PCs came along to help wean us from mainframes, when local computing power was something to be prized, not avoided.
Moving everything back to a centralized place, this time in the cloud, thus leaves me with a little trepidation.
I don’t think that is what is going to happen because of ubiquitous computing (also known as pervasive computing), and dispersed computing. They sound similar, and they are related, but they are distinct.
The former is often thought of in the Internet-of-Things gold rush, where everything is connected to the Internet, communicating all the time. It is happening already, and it will develop exponentially over the next few years. We’ll know more, about more things, than we ever could have guessed we might have needed.
The latter, though, is an even newer idea (Darpa is spurring it): all those devices aren’t just connected but they are all also computing. You draw your computing power from whatever is handy and appropriate to/necessary for the task(s) at hand.
You might access a distant cloud server farm for some needs, but your smart clothes for others. If you lose a connection, or if your computing needs shift, you seamlessly pick up another, or add more. Your screen might just be something you see through your AR contact lens and your “keyboard” might just be your hand gestures, or even a direct implant in your brain.
Think of computing power almost like electricity: it is just there, everywhere, and you won’t even always need wires. You use what you need, and you don’t really care where it comes from.
Think about your computers as, well, you won’t have to think about them at all. As I said in a previous post,
If you’re aware of your device, that’s the past… We’re going to have to get past our fascination with the latest and greatest devices — a new iPhone! a 4D television! — and let their technology fade into the background. As it should.
Healthcare is very proud about how it is finally adopting (if not quite embracing) computers, and many of its thought-leaders are taking Mr. Schmidt’s advice by starting to move to the cloud as the “next” big thing. That’s good.
I just would like to see them spending more time thinking about the next next big thing.
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