CeBIT 2007: Reger Predicts "Empty Desktop" in Fujitsu Keynote

Dr. Joseph Reger, Fujitsu-Siemens' CTO, said in a speech to journalists at CeBIT today that virtualized environments, toted on small devices, were likely to take a big bite out of traditional client PCs. The user's settings, documents, applications would all remain on the user's device, but the computing grunt would reside on a faraway server, linked-in by ultra-fast wireless connections.

Joe Fay of The Register reports:

"They could then activate their environment as they moved from location to location, say on some kind of thin client setup in their company's office, or through something similar in a hotel room. While the iPhone, or Samsung's and Nokia's latest phones pointed towards what this device might eventually look like, no one had cracked the problem yet, Reger said."

The idea isn't to replace laptops — Reger envisages in all this the birth of a new kind of information-centered device, a high-end viewer and organizer rather than an actual productive working tool.

Now, they've been talking about the return of the terminal for years. I've tried thin client computing, setting up a test terminal (a high-end one, at that) for remote desktop and all that gubbins. The user-experience was kind of meh and ended up in the store room: it's the applications that matter, the remoteness's sole importance is in being completely invisible to the user.

Fujistu Siemens chief predicts the empty desktop [The Register]