Do you think the desktop is dead?

I'd like to think we are going to see a new wave of innovation on the desktop - web apps have been catching up to a mostly static target but perhaps now there will be enough impetus to improve. I think that workflow and data relation management are two areas that the desktop has an advantage over the web (mostly due to processing power, speed of data transfer and graphics capability)

I'll stick my neck out: due to the influence of mobile and web apps the file system and explorer as we know it will have disappeared in 5 years to be replaced with something better.

Extending the life of the desktop: all the Internet-based ( aka cloud) services we use more and more like Gmail, Dropbox, Evernote, Spotify, etc which make it trivial to switch from phone to laptop to desktop and back. Even Apple is in the game now, with iTunes Match and the ability to download purchased apps, music and videos to all your computers. Used to be a huge pain to keep things straight on more than one device. Today, I never worry about it. Thinking of switching from just a laptop to also having a faster, larger screen desktop at home base.

Some day, there will be enough computing power and storage in a tiny device and we'll just have different size screens. But that's a ways off.

You can live off a laptop, but that's not what mobile first is about.

The desktop is not at all dead if the alternative is only reaching pad and smartphone users. Not even close to mortally wounded for business or home. My kid's school switched them to iPads and they immediately identified the problem--they hate typing on the things. My son takes paper notes. They're fine for consuming, but that's it.

Then there is the problem of app discovery, not to mention the pricing and business models that exists in the mobile world. They pretty much limit success to the few at the top with a lot of sharecroppers scratching out a living down below. It's even bad enough that Fred Wilson backed off a tad from the mobile first mantra.

More here: http://smoothspan.wordpress.com/2012/10/15/mobile-first-for-...

Sorry but I have to say it "Betteridge's law of headlines" so NO.

If by mobile first you mean smartphones and tablets, absolutely not, these don't have enough processing power to replace desktops unless all you do is email some docs and web, anything intensive (IDE, virtualization, image/video editing, vector design, 3d, and the list goes on) will require at least a laptop. Also most PC gamers will keep on going with the desktops not even laptops (I'm more a casual gamer now but the games I run don't even exist for any tablet, and most laptops will have to run them in low settings)

"Mobile first" is a design strategy, which ensures that you identify the primary content/features when making responsive designs.

It has nothing to do with which device is more important or more common.

No. With touchscreens, it will morph even further and converge with TVs (or become the TV -- you know, what you watch general video on, not necessarily what is fed by TV).

I've been hearing the "desktop is dead" thing repeated over the last 12-15 years, maybe longer. Yet the desktop is still around. What we are seeing though, is a blurring of the lines between desktop and mobile devices like laptops. At work my fairly high end laptop becomes my desktop via a docking-station setup. Other innovations will likely morph the desktop into something more portable and lightweight while retaining all its power.

I believe there was, is, and always will be a sub group of technology users that are 'computer hobbyists'. The percent of total computer users who are NOT in this group has gone way, way up. But I believe there is still this core group of tinkerers.

This used to be a required demographic to have endorse ones computer product, but no longer. Most users just want to do stuff and don't care about technology.

No. The one in front of me still has a lot of life in it, as do the four monitors. I have yet to do any serious work on mobile devices, including laptops (except when tethered to large monitors and a keyboard).

I expect the desktop will remain, if only as a convenient horizontal surface on which to place a keyboard and one or more displays. It won't matter where the computation takes place.

NO ! The desktop is just as important as the smartphone and tablet !

It depends on what you are trying to accomplish. A smartphone is great to tweet, etc. But you wouldn't want to Photoshop a poster with it. There are just so many shades of grey between those two extremes and it all depends on the use case you are specifying.

In the home market it is dead except for hardcore gamers. Business is trickier. I'd say it has been mortally wounded. Most people have a macbook or thinkpad that powers large displays, but they still take it with them and maybe use the small 13 inch screen at a coffee shop.

The Transaction processing always will be desktop.

Great insight!