According to Bloomberg, iCloud is more than a compelling new free service – it’s a Steve Jobs-led terrorist attack on the PC industry (I may be paraphrasing). By introducing a service that shares files across devices, Jobs is taking another step towards sidelining the PC industry he helped create.
According to Adam Satariano and Peter Burrows (reporting for Bloomberg):
Jobs aims to make Apple the center of consumers’ digital lives, further decreasing dependence on Microsoft Corp.’s once- dominant Windows software and Hewlett-Packard Co.’s market- leading PCs…With iCloud, files will be stored by Apple in remote data centers — known as the “cloud” in technology parlance — and automatically synchronize. That means the same content is available from any Apple gadget, without it cluttering up users’ hard drives.
While iCloud certainly does give Apple something of a competitive advantage, I can’t help but think that these two Bloomberg reporters are exaggerating things a bit – iCloud will, after all, work with and be accessible to Windows computers, and the desktop (or laptop) computer is still an essential fixture for a large number of computer users.
So, when Satariano and Burrows go on to say that, “The PC will be the most visible casualty of the cloud revolution,” and “Apple knows it,” I can’t help but think that in doing so, they’re simply forgetting about a significant segment of multi-tasking content creators, journalists, and even power-user consumers that aren’t about to be satisfied with anything less than a full desktop-like experience.
Read more in the full article here. Your thoughts? Sound off in the comments.
