A WSJ discussion has an interesting commment by a reader, Andy Limeri:
I think you may be a bit early in predicting the demise of the Larry Ellison’s Net PC idea. I think he was just way ahead of the technology curve. I think easy to use, diskless PCs will become more popular as broadband becomes more ubiquitous. With all the problems introduced by buying new software and the need to upgrade, the basic idea of the net PC may very well find new life. I think this is particularly true for non-portable PCs as the PC is more likely to always be plugged into a network. I’ll bet that sometime in the next couple years, someone will introduce a subscription service that includes the equivalent of Microsoft Office, only the software is server-based and you never need to worry about an upgrade. It’s already happening in games and games are one of the better technological indicators.
Thin Clients connected to Thick Servers is what we need in emerging markets – in homes, at the workplace and in rural TeleInfoCentres.
