The End of .Mac and Google Apps?

mattnyc99 writes "In his weekly tech column for Popular Mechanics, Glenn Derene predicts that everyone will have a home server to network their house within 10 years—rendering Apple's .Mac accounts and Google's productivity software useless. As prices for products like HP's MediaSmart Server drop and as processing power becomes more pervasive, Derene says, 'you'll ultimately need a centralized server—that high-powered traffic cop—to coordinate the non-stop exchange of information between your new multitude of devices.'"

Brought to you by

[edittard]

Brought to you by the shameless plug for HP dept.

that's moronic

[lthown]

I have a server at home, with over a TB of storage. I still use most of google's apps, especially Gmail.

Router/Server

[Ramble]

I agree, but I don't like the current implementation. Products like Windows Home Server won't appeal to the masses, they'll see it as too hard. What we need is a mixture between a router and a server, something that's easy to setup, small, cheap and is able to use storage spread over a numebr of PCs to share media and information.

What a dumb assessment

[neoform]

This basically assumes google and apple are going to be sitting on their hands for the next decade not changing their products in the slightest.

Obviously as things change they'll evolve their services to meet demand.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

doubtful

[somelucky]

Even in the future the main problem with this setup is reliablity. I have had a server in my home doing these functions for many years. However I would never rely upon it to be the same as a real internet server providing these services. When the power goes out at home, most of the time it will stay down until I get back home. I do agree that in the future we may not have to pay a premium to get 'business class' type access that we do today.

And who will run them?

[Pigeon451]

With Google apps and such, you just need to log in and take care of your business. No need to worry about server updates, hacking, spam, etc. A home server takes a little effort for someone who knows how to run one, but can take a lot of time for someone unfamiliar with servers.

Those aren't your grandma's apps...

[DMouse]

The major things i like about google's web based word app are:

1) it is someone else's responsibility to back it up, cluster it, load balance it, and improve it,
2) it is social, i can include other people in on my document edits easily,
3) i can effortlessly access it from anywhere, be it uni, work, home or a cafe.

Home based servers currently have none of the above, and until we get cheap at home clustering and easy ability to host apps on home adsl we still wont.

Assertions Straight out of his ass

[blantonl]

Let me be the first to say that Glenn literally pulled this assertion straight out of his ass.

No one can argue against home media servers driving innovation into the household, especially around automation and media management - but to displace software as a service? GoogleApps? I don't even in the slightest see where these two things correlate.

GoogleApps and .MAC (the two examples citied) not only provide value as a collaboration platform, but they are also extremely well designed, and cost effective for the business community. If anyone thinks that I'm going to plunk down 2K on an HP Media Server, and all the sudden declare my independence from Software as Service for the business purposes... well... you get the point - it's utter BS.

Glenn literally did 2 things.

1. Plugged HP's products (successfully)
2. Showed how absolutely absurd some columists can be (successfully)

But Seriously

[joe_n_bloe]

Why do I want an extra "hub" computer in my house when it's already a pain in the ass to keep a WEP-enabled wireless router working, and I actually know what I'm doing.

I'd rather let the guys at Google provide my word processor without my having to find room for another plug in my power strip. I've had enough DIY in my life. But y'all feel free.

Re:Router/Server

[whiteranger99x]

It's bad enough that most people have their routers left at their default password, now they're going to have servers like that too...hmmmmm. >:)

Re:Not web based...

[tomhudson]

su root
vi /etc/apache2.conf
i
listen 8000
listen 8080
:wq
apache2ctl restart

There - fixed it for ya.

now type http://examplehomeserver.com:8000/ [examplehomeserver.com] or http://examplehomeserver.com:8080/ [examplehomeserver.com]

BTW - The article is wrong - not everyone will be running a home server in 10 years. Most people don't want to be bothered, and won't want to spend the extra $$$ on electricity, etc. Cheaper and easier to just have one family member/friend run a linux/bsd box and offer user accounts with ssh, sftp, and ~usr/public_html access (or symlink /home/user/public_html /htdocs/user for people who can't figure out how to type a tilde.

"You need to type a tilde before your user name in the url."
"A what?"
"A tilde."
"I don't have a tilt key on my keyboard."
"Not tilt - tilde!"
"What's a tilde?"
"That squiggly line thingee."
"Oh, okay." ... pause ... I can't find it.
"The one next to the one."
"The one next to which key?"
"The one."
"I've got over a hundred keys ... which one?"
"The one."
"... yeah, sure ... quit pulling my leg - there's really no such thing as a tilt key, is there? This is a joke, like the "any" key."
(- click - account deleted)

Re:that's moronic

[gvmson]

Same here. I have 3 servers at home, that does not stop me from using both google and .mac

Useless?

[Wister285]

This article seems to be in the typical tradition of Slashdot sensationalism. HP bringing a new product to market that competes with Google's and Apple's products doesn't mean that one should automatically assume that older products become obsolete. HP's product doesn't solve the fundamental purpose of the other companies' applications. Google's and Apple's products are able to be used anywhere simply by logging into the web interface. This is the simplicity that people want. People have enough problems just from setting up their computers, so it is doubtful that within five, or even ten years, that people are going to want to manage a central home server. For better or worse, software as a service is something that big companies are pushing more and more. Despite technical or philosophical objections, its adoption will come down to one thing: whether a significant number of people believe that it increases their quality of life. Software as a service makes sense to a lot of people. Only their willingness pay for it will dictate how quickly it becomes popular.

mindless drivel about the future of computers

[digitalsushi]

I've been asking friends lately what they expect 10 years from now will be like for the average computer user. About ten of us have, after some long coffee breaks, decided that it'll be something like this:

No one will buy desktop PCs. in 2017 everything will be similar to what we call a laptop today. Data won't be stored on the laptops. Some people will have servers at home, but these people will be eccentric folks like us that host our own web, mail, et cetera in 2007 -- the fringe users. Everyone else will store their data online somewhere. Bandwidth will be charged by the pound instead of flat rate, but it will be very afforadable -- copying a terabyte to home won't cause more than a second of consideration. People will still have workstation caliber desktops, but those will be specialized machines much as they are today, overpowered for a certain task. By 2017, ipv6 is finally mainstream but just barely. Mobile devices will have aggregated down into a single device-- music, cell, radio, visual-- everyone will have the same typical device they carry that does everything, and it will work well. By then, everything will be aware of your biostats if you let it, so your music can follow your general mood, et cetera. They won't be psychic, just dumbly intelligent. Other than that, we decided that technology will be a lot less visible-- as it gets good/small enough to start hiding away in things, so it shall. Presentation will lose its glamour for the most part, and homes will actually look less teched out like they did before the 80s rose.

I'd love to hear other people's imagination reply to these inevitably wrong projections :)

Um

[sogoodsofarsowhat]

For $599 Apple already makes the Home Server its called a Mac Mini and is way better a solution than this HP Ad that /. is promoting.

Re:Router/Server

[leonem]

An alternative to this is that the central 'router' contain almost everything - CPU(s), HDs, RAM - and then you have a variety of clients. So your PC becomes just a terminal, as does your 'phone'.

There would be three types of device: the 'server' (which most people would probably just think of as 'the PC'), terminals (anything capable of full IO with the server) and very lightweight devices like the fridge, which don't give you access to everything, but can now communicate.

I like this system because as soon as bandwidth is large enough to handle piping the graphics to your terminal, the need to shove all that processing power and storage into handheld devices and laptops disappears. Much simpler, and probably much cheaper in the end.

I doubt it. What happends when it breaks.

[jellomizer]

The problem with a home server is to keep it running. .Mac, Google Apps, spend a lot of time and money (well at least I really hope) to make sure their servers are running backed up and have plenty of fail over. For most people if they have a consumer friendly home server it will be all and good until it breaks then you are SOL all your years of collected pictures... Gone, your important stuff gone... And who is to blame for it yourself. .Mac and Google (I Hope) have trained administers with backup systems that keep them running and if a system crashes you data is still there. Also your data is available from anywhere where there is an internet connection. We are getting more and more mobile with computing laptops are common now for normal use, Cellphones, PDAs are getting more and more powerful we can access the internet from anywhere. With a Home Server we will need to set up correct permissions keep track of security updates if we want external access and with most broadband connections have a much smaller up stream the server will be very slow from a remote location.

This would have been a good idea 10 years ago, where most internet was Dialup and Slow and most people had Desktop that they did work from home, but today it is a case of too little to late. We don't want a server anymore We want someone else to have a server and us to have access to it, and not worry about maintaining it.

Home-Based Servers Versus Hosted Apps

[peterbiltman]

One of the big reasons that I believe home based servers will triumph over hosted apps is the very same reason that they do in any organization -- security and privacy. Case in point, about 6 months ago after being a fan of Gmail for a long time I pulled the plug. Why? Reading the local newspaper one day I saw an article about how the courts have ruled that if your e-mail is stored on someone elses server they don't need a warrant for it. I'm not sure how universal this is, or if it was just in one particular jurisdiction, but that was enough to make me switch. I now run my own mail server.

Similarly the same goes for hosted apps. It's great they are backing it up, but remember, it only takes one rogue employee to sell your secrets to your competitor. If you are a business storing business-related documents on a hosted service you are at the mercy of the hosted company. You can say "it won't happen because of XYZ" all you want, but again it only takes one rogue employee working for the hosting company. Furthermore, if you are a public company or deal with sensitive information -- forget about it -- unless you want to be out of business tomorrow.

Centralized storage and data manipulation is the key -- whether that be in the home or the workplace. We are just now entering into this market and I think we are going to see some really good innovations come of it.

And, personally, yes I've tried out the Beta of Windows Home Server. My thoughts? I love it. It has a few features missing, but when it goes "gold" I plan on switching my home server over to it.

Non-Technical hurdles ...

[LoudMusic]

Lots of people are talking about all the technical reasons why everyone won't have a home server to replace online service and control their other devices, but how about the non-technical stuff. Like the fact that 99.9% of computer users have absolutely no clue what they're doing. They just send email and make text documents and spreadsheets. Setting up a home server, no matter how Apple-simple it gets, is a daunting task that frightens them even to think about. And coordinating it with all their other devices? Not likely. How about configuring it so you can access all your stuff from anywhere in the world? People would probably cease up and stop breathing. And there is no way, even for the most proficient of geeks, that any home user could provide themselves with as good of uptime as Google or Apple.

Trends against this

[dyfet]

There are strong political and commercial interests who activily oppose such a vision. First, there are the telcoms and cable companies who want to be gatekeepers to people's email and maintain monopolies on other services as well. Try setting up an email server on a residential service, and getting it both to successfully send email without interference by your isp, and having your email messages "accepted" by existing services, regardless of whether you have domain keys setup on your dns, etc, and you will see some of these forces in action.

As for media servers that may feed media where you want it on demand. I imagine if the RIAA and similar gangs can secure root access to your shiny new internet connected media server, say through trussed computing, and control where you are allowed to listen to your own music, along with an automated billing service, maybe then they may promote it rather than activily oppose such a vision. I could imagine such gangs buying laws that state operating "unlicensed" media servers is "intent to infringe" or some other similar kind of nonsense.

Finally, the traditional media providers and a particular software monopoly prefer a captive internet "consumer" model, starting with asymetric speeds, cemented by restrictive use contracts and finding common interest with governmental desires for increasingly filtered services, whether for imagined security threats or for unpopular governments keeping tabs on restless populations. Home servers where people can be liberated as true publishers and equals as information producers, rather than reduced to mear consumers captive to external hosted sites for what may become an ever decreasing set of tolerated forms of expression and activities, is certainly not in their agenda.

home server....please

[proadventurer]

I run a web server and for me it's part time. The sites are mostly my own real-world businesses and when I need to add, oh say, something new in the hppd.conf throu SSH it takes me a lot of remembering, lots of reading and calls to friends. AND everyone is going to have a server they have to maintain? I used to be a full time developer, 6 months pass and I can't remember how too.... how is my friend who can barly figure out how to restart their PC keep a "home" server running? Anyway...... I am going to my google homepage to read some real news.

Re:that's moronic

[DShard]

How do you figure that a change in communication protocol will change ISPs desire to offer tiered service? Blocking web servers has nothing to do with not having enough public IPs and everything to do with competition. The reason your broadband is cheap is the same reason port 80 is blocked.

Re:that's moronic

[marcosdumay]

And will those servers run Dunken Fuken Forever?

There is no reason we can't have that setup now. The only problem is that ISPs don't want it. So, in the future will ISPs be different, have competition, or what?

Predicting stuff that already happened

[MORB]

"Because in ten years, everything that could benefit from a microchip inside will have a microchip inside. And that means that were all going to own a lot of computers. Your television? A computer. Your cable/IPTV box? A computer. Your cell phone/messaging device? Also a computer. Bedside clock? You guessed it: Itll be a computer, too."

Those things have been computers since at least ten years.

Except alarm clock, because turning them into computers would be utterly pointless, so it didn't happen.
That all this junk would be networked has also been predicted a long time ago, and it just doesn't make sense.

Re:that's moronic

[senatorpjt]

I run servers on my cable modem, but I still use gmail for the email address I gave my boss, because their servers are more reliable than mine.

Even if people have these servers, they probably won't have redundant power supplies, access to multiple backbones, automatic backup, or uptime guarantees from the ISP.

Re:that's moronic

[dal20402]

And you really think Joe User is going to administer his own email server instead of using Gmail?

Even if Apple were to develop "Mail Server for Idiots" and you could just plop it onto the IPv6 network, it would still require some administration, to set up accounts, deal with over-quota family members, etc. On the client side, either Joe will have to get a domain name or type in an IPv6 address every time he wants to get his mail remotely, rather than typing "gmail.com." All of that takes time and brainpower that most people want to use elsewhere. Furthermore, Joe's home server is a WHOLE LOT more likely to lose his data than Google is, since Joe never wants to take the time to back up.

Most consumers will use home servers to store media libraries. In the IPv6 era a few more may use them for remotely accessible services like email and calendars, but not many. It just takes unnecessary time and effort, especially for someone who just doesn't care about technology.

Re:that's moronic

[AKAImBatman]

That's probably just because your ISP doesn't let you run servers on your DSL or cable modem

Says who? I run my own home-servers, and even a very popular web app. I used to rely on them for email service, but I transitioned to GMail instead. Why?

Quality of Service

Having dedicated staff ensuring that my email is running smoothly, is upgraded regularly with the latest features, has enough bandwidth and i/o to respond quickly, and is not vulnerable to attack is worth a lot more than the value of running my own email server.

Running my own email server takes a lot of time, effort, and money. To equal the level of service that GMail provides, I would have to spend the majority of time monitoring the service and writing/installing upgrades. Not to mention upgrading my bandwidth and server resources to provide the responsiveness I've come to expect out of GMail. (Sorry, imap on an old FreeBSD box just isn't as fast.) Thus in the end, it's easier and cheaper for me to simply use GMail.

Re:that's moronic

[znu]

I have business-class DSL with a static IP and a ToS agreement that lets me run all the servers I want. I used to have a server on the network and run my own e-mail, web hosting, etc. I don't anymore. Why? Because it's not worth my time. I don't want to have to worry about backups, software updates, spam filtering, DoS attacks... My e-mail is on GMail now, and I've switched my web hosting to MediaTemple. These guys have full-time staff to deal with any issues that arise. They have massive amounts of redundant infrastructure, backup power, and well tested procedures.

I used to think things would head in the direction of personal servers. Now, I think the trend will be in the other direction. More web-based apps, more hosted services. Why? Basically, because it provides huge economies of scale, in terms of both infrastructure and manpower.

Open protocols to sync devices

[failedlogic]

If the writer is even correct, then I hope manufacturers come out with Open and common protocols to sync any device to any storage server. Example: iPod is dependent on iTunes to sync properly and get all the music uploaded to it, Palm Piolts need the Palm Desktop, a Blackberry needs special software as do many cell phones. Much of this proprietary software only runs on Windows (or really well on Windows) exception being the iPod.

I'm a Mac user. But its dawned on me how reliant devices are on Windows to sync up and upload/download your information. Cell phones will be a heck of a lot more common in the future. Shoudn't I be able to store my voicemails, text messages etc on my own computer rather than the carrier's networks quickly, easily and cheaply? I've looked at getting a Blackberry but, frankly, if it doens't work well on my Mac where all my business contacts are stored, I'm not about to start using Windows (and buy a new computer have a G5 so can't dual boot) just to use a Blackberry.

Won't happen.

[Urza9814]

Not while ISPs like Comcast get away with charging $60 to remove the 'you may not run a server' clause from their TOS. (I actually did call them to see how much that would cost. $40 a month for what I have, $100 a month for the EXACT SAME SERVICE but with servers allowed.)

Re:that's moronic

[pjr.cc]

Personally i think the home server deal is probably going to become quite a reality. Lets face it your average joe with a home pc and an adsl link already has to do some form of management for themselves. If you assume they have other family members also using a shared pc then there's some more work to do there.

But, if some beast did become reality lets look at the reality of the technology its going to be storing mp3's, videos and all kinds of household rubbish. It also has to meanfully integrate with desktop pc's around it and be very simple to manage.

Now your average user can already plonk an adsl modem and a router + wireless on the network (altho, judging by the seriously large number of open wireless networks lying around its clear how little they bother to actually understand them). Now if i were to ask my upstairs neighbour (who has a wireless acces point, a router 2 laptops and desktop) what his ip address is, he wouldnt know what im talking about because his network hardware has a bunch of defaults he didnt need to bother with. Why would a home server be much different?

"oh, im running out of space, i'll have to delete some stuff"... But this is where the technology has to grow, the desktop pc has to be able to integrate easily but securely, the box itself should be easily upgradable for space (without destroying content, etc). Its not here yet but it cant really be that far away either.

Lets face facts, the technology is out there already to easily grow volumes on a running OS. All that needs to happen is for someone to plonk a simple management interface, a manual and easily plugable drives and viola - home server.

Obviously im over-simplifying but the technology isn't that far off for a reasonable home-server that could easily manage to:
- hold a bunch of mp3's
- hold a bunch of video
- record some stuff
- be upgradeable
- integrate easily into an existing pc
- put itself onto a network that already exists
- etc.

Try to find the "hard" part in all that (the correct answer is when things go wrong ;)).

Re:Brought to you by

[Overly Critical Guy]

A server in every home? People want less to deal with, not more. Why have a home server if you can just connect to one online? This is why I laughed when Microsoft introduced its home server edition of Windows, because it's so contrary to current trends.

Re:Brought to you by

[teh kurisu]

My flatmates and I had a server running in our living room all through uni. At first we used it to share our ADSL connection, which was accessed with a PCI modem that our ISP provided. We used it as a Quake server and a file and ssh server after that, so when we bought a wireless NAT router we kept it around.

In my last year of uni, I was working in a special lab where we were allowed to bring in our own laptops and connect to the university network. This was all by special provision, and we were behind an additional firewall. POP, SMTP and IMAP were all blocked, so were were unable to access email services not only from the internet, but even from elsewhere in the same department. So we set up an email service on our living room server, that would check all our accounts and provide IMAP access when at home, and Horde webmail access when we were in uni.

It wasn't an ideal solution, because Horde was difficult to set up and use, and very slow, mainly because although we had close to 8mb downstream, we were still on 512mb upstream. If this kind of approach is to take off with ordinary users, there needs to be a slot-in solution, and upstream speeds need to come closer into line with downstream. The other issue was power consumption. In these days where we're being told to consume less energy, an always-on machine in the house isn't going to look attractive.

.mac is history...

[MsGeek]

...unless Apple starts giving it away. Seriously. Between Google apps and XDrive I have everything .mac has for FREE. Even the zealots will come around.

Oh yeah, home servers, unless they are exposed to the Internet, do not give you the ability to access your data from anywhere there's connectivity. I dread to think what would happen in an Internet where you have home servers everywhere. Particularly home servers running WINDOWS. The only folks who would be happy in a situation like that would be Russian pr0n spammers.