On 03/22/2012 10:42 PM, Kevin Kofler wrote:
Przemek Klosowski wrote:
> Fair enough, but the trends are well established, and the data are
> for shipments so the actual deployed numbers are compounded (flat
> shipments translate to steady growth, linear or faster shipment
> growth means quadratic or maybe even exponential growth).
Quite the opposite, shipments are related to the first (discrete)
derivative of active deployments, which will necessarily amplify the
effects: if the number of shipments decreases, that just means that
growth in deployments is slowing down, not that the number of
deployments decreases.
I think we're saying the same thing here; the point is that compounding
amplifies even small trends.
A computer is often a per-household device. A cellphone is per
person, or even multiple devices per person (e.g. multiple phones
with different contracts, or a phone and a tablet, etc.). So the
total number is necessarily going to be larger without there being
more users.
Of course, but numbers are numbers; we just have to pay attention to
lighter, mobile formfactors. It is the same reasoning as in the desktop
vs. server dilemma 15 years ago: you could say that 'servers are
per-company devices', so Linux has been concentrating on the desktops,
where the numbers were---while still paying attention to servers. As we
know it's a good idea to optimize for both desktop and server; they
aren't contradictory.
As I wrote responding to Nicolas, the GUI interaction concepts from
mobiles are relevant to all platforms, and it is appropriate to think
ahead and seek a model that serves both. Microsoft also seems to follow
this direction, and implements it, however awkwardly, in Windows 8.