Cloud computing rise: bandwidth and browser importance overtake operating system

Lead: As cloud computing rises, the operating system will no longer be important, and what really matters is network bandwidth and an excellent web browser, Computerworld, the US it website, published today in Steven Wahn-Nigels.

The following is the full text of the article:

For decades, we've been arguing about operating systems: "Mac OS x is better than Windows!" "Since XP works well, why upgrade Windows 7?" "You are all wrong, Linux is the king." "A similar debate is about to be history.

Thanks to the development of virtualization, cloud computing and web technology, desktop operating systems are becoming less important to users, as are tablets and smartphones.

Don't get me wrong, as long as we use the computer, the operating system is still very important. But in many ways, their importance is limited to the behind-the-scenes.

Looking at the desktop, more and more applications can be run in the browser. In fact, Google Chrome OS is built on this idea. The company believes that users need only one browser is enough, and Google also put this concept into the entire software ecosystem, the launch of Gmail and docs and other products. The advancement of Web browsers stems from the development of network technology, such as the rise of HTML5 standards. If you don't believe in HTML5 's advantage, you won't notice that even Adobe has abandoned flash to develop HTML5.

At the same time, SaaS (software as a service) is becoming increasingly popular. This is not just Google's plan, Dropbox and many other software can also provide users with cloud computing storage services. At the same time, Apple's icloud also shifted data storage and media services, e-mail, and contact management to the cloud. Microsoft is also expanding this path with Office 365.

In the enterprise market, as cloud computing services take over more and more functions, the previous C/S (client/server) model is outdated. Users are increasingly unclear about the actual storage of applications and data. The enterprise IT staff may understand that the data is stored in a data center, but it is also limited to this. Similar changes are taking place in the consumer sector, and personal storage and services are shifting to the cloud.

In the background, which is the data center that handles cloud computing services, a row of servers runs virtual operating systems to meet the needs of users. The enterprise IT department no longer needs to allocate the physical servers separately to meet the requirements, instead, automated programs or system administrators can request more storage space or CPUs at any time.

All this means that the role of various operating systems and devices-including PCs, tablets and smartphones-will be reduced in businesses and households. What really matters is ample network bandwidth and an excellent web browser.

In short, computing will become a common commodity. As long as we can surf the Internet, we don't have to worry about operating system problems, just like we don't need to know how the current is transmitted, but we can still use electricity.