Thursday, October 13, 2011

Steve Jobs @ BusinessWeek

An excellent story, a complete issue only about Steve Jobs @ Bloomberg Businessweek Magazine

Steve Jobs: The Beginning, 1955-1985
The high school loner who figured out what the world wanted from technology

Steve Jobs: The Wilderness, 1985-1997

Cast out from Apple, Jobs tried—and failed—to make a different kind of computer

Steve Jobs: The Return, 1997-2011
In his third act, Jobs led Apple on a run of success unprecedented in corporate history

Windows MultiPoint Server 2011

Windows MultiPoint Server 2011

A strange but possibly useful configuration
where one Windows server computer could handle many "terminals",
i.e. many keyboard/mouse/screens, or "thin client" computers.
Just plug them to USB ports and "play"...

Originally developed for schools, now available for small business also
(up to 20 clients per server).

Here is podcast interview about MultiPoint Server @ RunAsRadio

Almost the same thing was X-Windows on Unix, many, many years ago.
With Linux, it is "free", not counting IT cost.
And this "IT cost" is what Microsoft wants to reduce...

The cost may be a little lower than using full-featured client computers,
but installation and management is centralized and simplified...
"Simple" with Microsoft technology is a "relative" concept :)
Still could be useful...




Oracle attempted similar with "Network Computer" 15 years ago...
Are computers are now really 100+ times faster? (Moore's law)

"Legacy" apps may be a good reason for Microsoft's solution.
But if all users need is a HTML5 capable browser, what is the server for?

Soon enough there will be "monitors" with Chrome browser embedded,
or Mozilla's "Boot to Gecko (B2G)",
a HTML5 web browser without the OS. Just a browser "on the metal".