Corporate PCs are an endangered species - not necessarily personal computers or corporate desktops, but PCs configured as integral parts of a corporate network. Why? Because personal and corporate imply conflicting paradigms, and managing the interaction between them has become too costly.

Using PCs today in a network environment is a nightmare to establish, maintain, and operate efficiently and reliably. Because PCs are personal, they can all be different - even if corporate policy says they're supposed to be standard. The result is that networks and clients have to know a lot about each other. Users - and systems administrators - face enormous complexity.

At the same time, companies see the enormous potential of networks to boost employee performance and business practices. Corporate intranets can unlock vast treasures of data otherwise trapped in data centers. They can also connect employees, customers, and suppliers in new and surprising business practices. So the pressure is on to put more of the company on the network.

Until Java, there was only one way to deal with this inherent complexity in network computing: Add more complexity. But Java simplifies the computing model by letting users download only what they need for specific tasks. Once an applet is downloaded from the network, it runs locally; because Java programs are safe, the system can be simple.

The telephone network sets the standard by which users will judge computer networks. We have to hide the complexity of the network, shielding users and content providers, who can then innovate and add value, but ignore the complicated infrastructure issues.

In this Java computing model, your desktop has to comply with the network standard - the equivalent of every phone having an RJ-11 jack. It can be a JavaStation or another network computer, but it also can be a PC or workstation, for which virtually every supplier has agreed to provide a Java-enabled browser. From the network's point of view, all desktops are equivalent: What you have is what you need and can afford.

A similar simplification applies on the server side. Content and application providers must offer a Web interface so the network again can be operated independently of the exact nature of these servers. Today, if a company has X servers and Y clients, the network has to support X times Y interconnections, all of which could be unique. For Sun, that figure is more than 200 million. But in the Java world, you write an application once and publish it to the network so that any client can subscribe to it via their Web page - their Webtop. Thus, instead of a network with hundreds of millions of interconnections, it's just one times one. That is the power of the Web!

No company can afford desktops that aren't standard, so PCs must give way to NCs that are content neutral and involve zero administration. When all the servers are Web-compliant, the whole network can become content neutral, again just like the telephone system. The next step is the emergence of Webtops as the standard means of organizing and administering user network environments. In a Web-based corporate network, there's only one logical place to store user state or environment - on the Web itself.

Just as Java made software another data type on the Web, Webtops will make state just another data type on the Web. Because the Web, network computing, Webtops, and all of Java computing are a layered technology, CIOs can migrate to this environment at a pace that makes economic sense. You could see 80% to 90% of companies on NCs within five years.

So it's not that the PC goes away. Rather, it changes. Molts. Assumes a new role. The network has truly become the computer.

Source: Information Week