Gartner reports that the "’Personal Cloud’ is going to supplant PCs by 2014

So what are they predicting? They are suggesting that the primary digital device for most users will not be the PC by 2014. I am not sure that will be true, we may see that in addition to PCs many people will also have a tablet, smartphone or some other kind of consumer device.

For those of us that are doing creative work, I’m not sure a touch device is the best answer. However, they are pointing at some of the cloud services like OnLive and CloudOn as predecessors to even more robust services that a less powerful system can access and still get the performance they need out of a tablet device.

Gartner has indentified five “megatrends” that are contributing to the shift toward the personal cloud:

• Consumerization. As users have become more technologically adept -- and more plugged into the Internet and social media -- they are demanding devices and connectivity on their own terms.
• Virtualization. Thanks to virtualization, users are no longer tied to specific devices or OSes, even in the workplace.
• "App-ification." User experience apps can be used to tweak existing applications so that they work on a greater range of devices and platforms.
• Self-Service Cloud. Personal, self-service clouds allow users to create virtual workspaces, tailored to their preferences and available on multiple devices, anytime and anywhere.
• Mobility Shift. Improved mobile devices -- including those equipped with touchscreens and other interactive UIs -- are increasingly able to perform traditionally PC-based tasks. Given this functionality, an array of mobile devices can be interchangeably used as primary devices while a user is on the go.

We are starting to talk to some of our clients that wanting to have the same desktop available to their employees on whatever machine they connect with, whether it is a desktop, tablet or some kind of thin-client machine. They site that having an expected sameness with any device will help them be more productive and give them a better use experience.

As we keep seeing the cost of hardware go down and their capabilities begin to soar up the scale we can see more of a push towards this direction. We will need to start seeing software costs that promote this style of interface for the client come more in line in cost to make this happen more quickly.