Desktop War Ratchets Up

May 11, 2006

Three news items from the last day or two make me think that we are about to see some major changes in the PC desktop:

Google Introduces New Products for Users

Google has released its Desktop 4 beta, with an impressively rich selection of tools that you can put together in a multitude of combinations to customize your desktop with applications. Ready-made Google Gadgets are mini-applications in many shapes that can be added to your desktop. They include clocks, weather globes, search tools, media players, an email reader, feeds for news and stocks, a photo viewer, maps, a scratch pad and more. Next week Google is introducing Google Notebook, which will allow you to save notes, images and links while doing online research, and to share them with others.

Thinking out of the Xbox

Microsoft has announced a new Live Anywhere platform to be released next year with Windows Vista. Live Anywhere will tie together the Xbox, the PC desktop and the mobile device. Although Microsoft seems to be positioning Live Anywhere as a way to extend gaming across devices, it seems to me this could be a significant step toward multi-device integration in general.

Flash to jump beyond the browser

This might not exactly be new news, but this CNET story reveals more about Adobe's Apollo project, which is working toward liberating Flash (remember Flash is a Macromedia product and Adobe purchased Macromedia awhile back) from the Web browser allowing it to run Internet-enabled applications directly from the user's desktop.

All these announcements suggest a potential for a rapidly-evolving desktop in the near future, with infinite capability for personalization. The announcements that get me most excited are the ones coming from Google, but that's just me.

AB -- 5/11/06