Cloud computing era: Will the PC's demise?

From mainframe to PC, from PC to cloud computing, the development of computers has undergone a cycle. With the advent of the cloud computing era, computing, storage and many other personal computer functions are gradually put into the cloud, then the traditional PC where to go? Unlike the radical view of the PC's death, Jianping, a cloud-era general manager, sees the future of traditional PCs becoming increasingly fragmented, with some home PCs not dying as a result of the higher requirements for computing and storage, while another segment of the business PC is gradually turning to the cloud as its functionality The commercial PC itself gradually develops toward the thin terminal.

Tian, chairman of China's Broadband Capital Fund, once said that after the decision to invest in cloud computing industry, the entire cloud computing industry from chip to server, from the storage network Exchange to the cloud Platform management software, the entire industrial chain some aspects are relatively scarce. "Thin terminal such a very important field in the future, there is no ready-made very good business, there is no good company willing to change." Tian said, "Then we have a team now." In this way, jianping into the Tian vision.

Jianping, a shanghai-based man who finished her undergraduate and master's in the country, went to the U.S. in 1989 to graduate from the University of Texas at Dallas. Jianping from childhood ideal is to be a soldier, later did the university teacher, then went abroad, in Nortel and ZTE work for five years and six years respectively, mainly engaged in mobile communication chip design work.

2011, Jianping founded Cloud Times Technology Co., Ltd. Cloud-era business focused on thin terminals, the cloud era of thin terminals for China's huge commercial PC market. According to its official website, Cloud era is committed to become the industry's leading cloud terminal equipment, desktop cloud systems and the "Cloud + End" management platform for the overall solution provider to help Chinese enterprises to "cloud + End" architecture transformation.

The business model for thin terminals is based on the logic that: with the advent of the cloud era, the traditional PC storage functions and part of the computing power are placed on the cloud side, the cloud becomes more and more powerful, thicker and thinner, the corresponding PC is becoming more and more thin, including hard drives, fans, optical drives and other edge modules can be removed, This will not only reduce costs, but also reduce power consumption.

According to Jianping, the real cloud volume and power consumption should be one-tenth or less than the traditional PC. But the cloud terminal is not only the traditional PC hardware simplified version, more important is the combination of thin terminal and server software, so that desktop virtualization can be truly realized.

Although traditional PCs remain dominant, thin terminals have begun to wind up. According to Gatner forecast, China in 2015, the number of desktop cloud terminals will reach 16 million, in the United States, by 2012, 50% of the companies have adopted desktop virtualization, the current China is using and are deploying the desktop cloud and its 2012 planning of the proportion of enterprises is about 50%.

The clouds are catching up with the tide. Jianping not willing to disclose financial data, but see sack, from last May set up to now, barely a year, the cloud era has formed from the research and development, management, production and sales of nearly hundred people's team, launched 6 Cloud terminal products. Customer coverage of Government, telecommunications operators, banks, insurance, securities, health care, education, manufacturing and other industries, and even the army has become a cloud era customers.

Jianping's market expectations are relatively conservative, and now China's desktop commercial PCs are about 27 million, "I estimate that about One-third to One-fourth of PCs will be replaced by cloud terminals after 45, that is, 7 million to 9 million, with an average price of 1000 yuan per unit, Plus management software and other related products, the market will be tens of billions of dollars in size. ”

Cloud terminals can not have hard drives, fans, and optical drives to achieve shared host resources, and desktop terminals do not require permission to significantly reduce hardware investment and software license overhead. Single from equipment prices, although the thin terminals based on ARM chips are only a fraction of the price of a traditional PC, but with the cost of virtualization software not much cheaper than a traditional PC, Jianping provides data showing that in a call center environment, the cost of a thin terminal plus virtualization software, each thin terminal price of 2 , 700 yuan, the most expensive up to 8,000 yuan.

The key to the winning of thin terminals is that operating costs are significantly lower than those of traditional PCs. Cloud terminals are more power-saving than PCs, the power of the cloud terminal is almost negligible compared to the PC, PC power is up to hundreds of watts, and the cloud terminal can do 20 watts, although the cloud Terminal Server power consumption will increase, or the Cloud + end mode of electricity consumption is at least half as low as the PC.

Windows 8 proves that "PC will die" exaggerated Qualcomm chairman Paul Yas: Next generation PC should always be networked network thinking technology: PC Terminator on the other hand, cloud terminals can save human capital greatly. In the traditional PC environment, an IT staff generally can only manage 100 PCs, and the human cost in Beijing is at least 50,000 to 100,000, according to 50,000, the cost of allocation to each PC for a year of maintenance management costs is 500 yuan. But in the thin terminal terminal environment, IT personnel's management ability multiplied, the scale larger scale effect is higher, the cost which spread to each terminal is also lower.

Thin terminal Another advantage is that what happened on the PC side is now on the server side, from the management of data, software updates, IT service deployment and so on, all bring great benefits to the enterprise, but also for the private cloud to the public cloud to pave the way for a good foundation.

But the cloud terminal industry is facing the mobile phone industry has faced the problem: cottage. For Shanzhai businesses, cloud terminals are no different from traditional PCs, making cloud terminals as simple as assembling PCs. This also raises a question to the cloud age: how to deal with the competition of Shanzhai, the technical threshold of cloud terminal?

The defense of the cloud era lies in the ability of software development. In addition to hardware, thin end products include software and protocols that interface with cloud platforms in the background, as well as optimization of local operating systems and cloud-platform background management software. Even if the future of the software and hardware of the Shanzhai vendors are standard, jianping that in the era of cloud terminals, the industry's product quality, services and brands, as well as the company's team and financial stability of these factors will be more important than in the past.

Another challenge facing the thin-end industry is the lack of uniform technical standards. Although the concept of cloud computing has been in full swing, but from the standard point of view, the entire cloud industry chain is still in the spring and autumn Warring States era. The current standard of cloud computing includes two main aspects, one is the design of the whole architecture, the other is the communication protocol between the devices. Jianping that, for private clouds and cloud terminals, the communication protocol is not as deadly as the mobile industry. In the mobile communications industry, if the communication protocol is not standardized, the industry will not be able to develop. Cloud terminals do not have this problem, on the one hand, the physical layer itself has been standardized, on the other hand, in the communication Application layer or protocol layer, because the cloud terminals do not need to move, and other companies do not need to communicate with the device.

In terms of infrastructure, there are a number of manufacturers of standards, the cloud ERA strategy adopted is the three mainstream facts exist in the architectural standards are supported.

(Responsible editor: The good of the Legacy)