Google claims desktops may become redundant within the next three years

The desktop will soon be a relic of the past. At least that’s what Google vice-president of Global Ad Operations John Herlihy seems to believe. This startling and bold prediction came during his speech at the Digital Landscapes conference in Dublin.

According to a report by Irish tech news service SiliconRepublic.com, he said,” In three years time, desktops will be irrelevant. In Japan, most research is done today on smart phones, not PCs.” These are the very same views expressed by Google CEO Eric Schmidt himself, who announced last month that the search giant is focusing on mobile, not desktop, search, and urged application developers to do the same.

So is it really curtains for the trusty old desktop PC? Yes and no. Yes, because a lot of companies (including Google) are increasingly moving towards new innovations in the field of ‘cloud computing’. But ‘cloud computing’ is constantly developing technology and a lot still needs to be done to overcome bandwidth bottlenecks. So I personally don’t think that handheld smartphones will completely replace PC’s and laptops in the near future.

However, the big bulky desktops are definitely on their way out. They will be replaced by sleek and compact tablet PC’s that will have all the functionalities of a regular PC while being ultra-portable at the same time. These tablet PC’s which were prohibitively expensive, will become very affordable due to reductions in manufacturing costs.