Cloud Computing Is Well and Good, but It Can’t Beat the Desktop Computer. – By Paul Boutin – Slate Magazine

One of the nice things about Word and Photoshop is that once I fire them up and start working, I can forget all about the Internet for a few hours. Sometimes, my PC and I just want to be alone.Cloud computing is well and good, but it can’t beat the desktop computer. – By Paul [...]Published April 3, 2008

Written by Joey

Photography introduced me to the 'new media' evolution. I currently do community management at Meraki in San Francisco, but this blog is about journalism, some UX design, and the occasional rant. more →

@joeybaker | joey@byjoeybaker.com

Sharing

One of the nice things about Word and Photoshop is that once I fire them up and start working, I can forget all about the Internet for a few hours. Sometimes, my PC and I just want to be alone.

Cloud computing is well and good, but it can’t beat the desktop computer. – By Paul Boutin – Slate Magazine

I couldn’t agree more. The idea of putting all sorts of applications online is interesting, but not really practical. Photoshop Express is interesting, but it’s no more than a proof of concept to me. Perhaps worth having as a tool on an online picture ordering site (like MPIX) as a means of last minute adjustments.

Similarly, gDocs, is convenient if I need to share text with someone as I type it (and see theirs), but it’s really not a replacement to Apple Pages, which I do use instead of Microsoft Word.

This guy’s basic point is good. Computing through the browser is an interesting idea, but yet to be practical.

The real money will be made when someone figures out how to use these simple apps as they are – not as desktop replacements, but as quick little apps that plugin into simple web apps. The web is about collaboration, make the web apps about that too.

James Urquhart

Then again, there are those that have gone almost completely online. The tools are quickly getting there, and there is a tremendous amount that can be done from thin clients and mobile devices today that at one time could only have been done directly on a PC.

Photoshop may be one of the last to get sophisticated online, but Flickr has http://www.preloadr.com/ and there is the aforementioned Photoshop Express. It is simply a matter of time, IMHO.