Talking about the Future Development of PC

From the large computer to the PC, and then from the PC to the cloud computing, the computer has gone through a whole cycle of development. After the advent of the cloud computing era, many PC-side functions such as computing and storage have gradually been migrated into the cloud. How will a traditional PC evolve? Unlike the radical PC death, Jiang Jianping, general manager of the cloud era, believes that in the future, traditional PCs will gradually differentiate and grow. Some home PCs have higher requirements for computing and storage functions. Therefore, this part of the PC Impossible to die, and for other parts of the commercial PC, as the business began to move some of its functions to the cloud, so the commercial PC will eventually move toward the thin terminal direction.

Tian Canning, chairman of China Broadband Capital Fund, once mentioned that after deciding to invest in the cloud computing industry, he found that the entire cloud computing industry is going from chips to servers, from storage networks to cloud platform management software, and the entire industrial chain is scarce in some aspects. "Thin terminals such a very important area in the future, neither ready-made good business, there is no good company is willing to transition." Tian said, "Then we take a team." In this way, Jiang Jianping entered Tian's vision.

Jiang Jianping, a native of Shanghai, went to the United States to study in the United States after graduating from the undergraduate and master level in China in 1989. He graduated from the University of Texas at Dallas. Jiang Jianping childhood ideal is to be a soldier, and later became a university teacher, then go abroad to study in Nortel and ZTE have worked for five years and six years, mainly engaged in the design of mobile communications chips.

In 2011, Jiang Jianping founded Cloud Times Technology Co., Ltd. Business in the cloud era concentrated on thin terminals, and the thin-end cloud-era terminals are aimed at China's huge commercial PC market. According to its official website, the cloud era is committed to becoming the industry's leading cloud terminal equipment, desktop cloud systems and cloud + end management platform for the overall solution provider to help Chinese enterprises to the cloud + end architecture transformation.

The thin-end business model is based on the logic that with the advent of the cloud era, the storage capabilities and some computing power of traditional PCs are on the cloud side and the clouds are getting stronger and thicker; the corresponding PCs change Get thinner, including hard drives, fans, optical drives and other edge modules can be removed, so not only reduce costs, but also reduce power consumption.

According to Jiang Jianping's idea, the real cloud volume and power consumption should be only one-tenth of the traditional PC or less. However, the cloud terminal is not only a simplified version of the hardware of the traditional PC, but more importantly, the combination of the thin terminal and the server software enables desktop virtualization to be truly realized. Although the traditional PC still dominates, but the thin terminal has started to flourish. According to Gatner's forecast, China will reach 16 million desktop desktops in 2015; in the United States, 50% of enterprises have adopted desktop virtualization by 2012, and currently China is using and deploying desktop cloud to include In 2012, the proportion of enterprises in planning is about 50%.

Cloud era to catch up with this wave. Jiang Jianping reluctant to disclose financial data, but glimpse into the whole picture, from the establishment in May last year to now, less than a year, the cloud era has set up from R & D, management, production and sales of nearly a hundred people's team launched 6 cloud terminal products. Our clients cover a wide range of industries including government, telecom operators, banks, insurance, securities, healthcare, education, manufacturing and even the military have become customers in the cloud era.

Jiang Jianping's market expectation is relatively conservative. At present, the size of China's desktop PC is about 27 million units. "I estimate that about one-quarter to one-fourth of PCs will be replaced by cloud terminals four to five years later, that is, 700 million units to 900 million units, at an average price of 1,000 yuan per unit, plus management software and other related products, the size of this market will be tens of billions of dollars. "

Cloud terminals can have no hard drives, fans, and optical drives for shared hosting resources without the need for desktop terminals, drastically reducing hardware investment and software license overhead. Single from the device price, although the thin-walled arm-based terminals only a fraction of the price of traditional PC, but with the cost of virtualization software is not much cheaper than the traditional PC, Jiang Jianping data provided by the call center Environment, thin terminals plus the cost of virtualization software, the price of each thin terminal 2,700 yuan, the most expensive up to 8,000 yuan.

The key to winning a thin terminal is operating costs significantly lower than the traditional PC. Cloud terminals are more energy efficient than PCs. The power of cloud terminals is almost negligible compared to PCs. The PC power is as high as several hundred watts, while the cloud terminals can achieve less than 20 watts. Although cloud terminals have some power behind the background servers Increase, or cloud + end of the model at least half the power consumption than the PC.

Windows 8 to prove "PC will die" excuse Qualcomm chairman Paul Jacobs: the next generation of PC should always be networked thinking technology: PC Terminator On the other hand, cloud terminals can greatly save the maintenance of human capital. In a traditional PC environment, an IT staff can only manage 100 PCs in general. However, the manpower cost in Beijing is at least 50,000 to 100,000. According to 50,000 calculations, the maintenance and management fee allocated to one PC per year is 500 yuan. In the thin terminal environment, IT personnel management capacity increased exponentially, the larger the larger the scale effect, the lower the cost allocated to each terminal.

Another benefit of a thin terminal is that what originally happened on the PC side is now on the server side, with great benefits for organizations from the standpoint of managing data, software updates, and IT service deployments, and also for private clouds to public clouds Paving the way to good foundation.

But the cloud terminal is facing the problem the mobile phone industry has faced: the cottage. For the cottage business, the cloud terminal and the traditional PC no difference, the manufacture of cloud terminals and PC assembly as simple. This also poses a question to the cloud era: how to deal with the competition in the cottage, cloud terminal technology threshold?

The defense of the cloud era lies in the ability of software development. In addition to the hardware, the thin end products include software and protocols that interface with the cloud platform in the background, as well as the optimization of the local operating system and cloud platform backend software. Even if the hardware and software specifications of the cottage manufacturers will reach the standard in the future, Jiang Jianping believes that in the era of cloud terminals, the factors such as product quality, service and brand of the enterprises in the industry and the stability of the company team and capital 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 a standard point of view, the entire cloud industry chain is still in the Spring and Autumn Period. The current cloud computing standards mainly include two aspects, one is the design of the entire architecture, the other one is the communication protocol between devices. Jiang Jianping believes that for the private cloud and cloud terminals, this part of the communication protocol is not as deadly as the mobile communications industry. In the mobile communications industry, if the communication protocol is not standardized, this industry will not be able to develop. Cloud terminal does not exist this problem, on the one hand is the physical layer itself has been standardized, on the other hand, in the communication application layer or protocol layer, because the cloud terminal does not need to move, do not need to communicate with other company's equipment.

In terms of infrastructure, there are currently multiple manufacturers' standards. The strategy adopted in the cloud era is supported by the three mainstream factual architecture standards.