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Wintel World Says "Slow Down"

While Apple continues to embrace upcoming technologies such as FireWire and USB (FireWire and DVD being highly probable on the next iMac revision), the Wintel world is having trouble accepting change, as outlined in a recent CNN article (“PC vendors should slow down on radical redesigns“):

Intel Corp. and Microsoft Corp. are spearheading those plans through initiatives with names like PC 99, Easy PC and Legacy-Free PC. They would wipe out some elements of the desktop computer that have been standard since the IBM Personal Computer was introduced in 1981. And the first PC designs based on the new specifications, from Intel, IBM, Gateway and Hewlett-Packard Co., will be previewed at Intel’s Developer’s Forum later this month in Palm Springs, Calif.

But the changes — which include elimination of serial and printer ports, traditional Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) add-in card slots and even floppy-disk drives — could wreak havoc on corporate IT departments and their users, who are already struggling to cope with year 2000 fixes and enterprise software deployments.

It’s an interesting read to see where the future of computing is going because whatever happens on the Wintel hardware side does ultimately affect what happens on the Macintosh hardware side.

By Jason O'Grady

Founded the PowerPage in 1995.