Do you think that main software packages like Windows and Office will continue to develop at the same rate now - a new release every year or so - or will they plateau out at some point (assuming the companies are still around)?
I predict that in 30 years, Windows will be twice as powerful, 10,000 times larger and so expensive that only the five richest Kings of Europe will be able to afford it (the rest of us will just bootleg a copy).
I think they’ll switch to a server-based system long before that. Many of us already use web-based mail, and it’s a small step from there to web-based word processing. The software itself will be continually updated.
I sure hope there will still be alternative software available then.
God I hope not.
OSMCXVII.2 - yes. (Ocelot? Hyena? Maine Coone?!!)
I’ll be snickering at them from my walker as I boot the multilingual holographic interface on my SuSE Linux 16.2… 
Bryan–great reference.
I personally hope I live to see the day that the NFL abandons Roman numeral Super Bowls.
You may stand a chance of using Lotus SmartSuite v.28 or OpenOffice v.17 or something, but if Microsoft sticks to their guns, you won’t have a copy of Excel or Word on your local computer at all, and they’ll therefore be able to update it 2-3 times per day if they see fit.
Are there problems with this strategy? Will people find it frustrating to work in an environment that shifts out from beneath them in a sequence of never-ending changes? Or will the changes be so gradual that they’ll acclimate to them as they occur?
Personally, as a FileMaker programmer, I can sure see the attraction from the programmer’s standpoint of being able to change the code and instantly everyone using the product inherits the changes you just made. After all, that’s how my end users experience it when I make modifications to the database systems that run on our servers!
I’m somewhat less than sanguine about a world in which I can only subscribe to applications rather than own them, though.
I’d be happier with the right of ownership and the ability to subscribe to upgrades (and also the ability to say “no” to them and keep the older code base), I think.
Just found this very old thread, and wow - did you ever predict the cloud!
It was interesting to read this 17 yo zombie. Yes, there is a lot of cloud computing, but I still do all my stuff on my computer. Does TeX have a cloud version? I don’t know.
One thing, I think Win-NT was available by 2002. That was, IMHO, the best version of Windows ever. Since then it has gotten only harder to use, although apparently a lot less vulnerable to hacking.
And it really doesn’t look like the NFL will ever abandon roman numbering of super bowls. L would have been a good place to quit.
In case you or others didn’t know, the Super Bowl for the 2015 season wasn’t called L, it was called 50. The Roman numbers were resumed the following year.
Nostalgia will be big by then, we’ll be back to using Windows 98 & dial up, like some young folks have developed a liking for records.:eek:
Probably not… Office has effectively gone to a subscription model with Office 365 (can you even buy the standalone kind anymore?), and ISTR reading that Windows 10 is intended as the last numbered release of Windows- apparently it’s modular enough that the plan is to continually update it through the web so that you don’t need to buy new versions- Windows as a service, basically.