Comment The great life cycle of IT. (Score 4, Insightful) 176
When it was invented, compute was all centralized into large systems that predate todays mainframes and accessed remotely via compute sharing systems (aka time sharing).
Then the PC came along, and businesses repatriated their workloads to their own servers and the desktop. The justification? Security and cost.
Then the networking and Citrix came along. Companies started centralizing their workloads again, turning the PC into a dumb terminal that just accessed shared compute, again. The era of "thin clients". The justification? Cost.
Then companies started building more complex workloads in the desktop PCs and apps, because it cost too much to run. The Era of "thick clients". The justifications, again, mainly revolved around cost.
Then companies decided that thick clients were inefficient, and started pushing the idea of web based applications. This came along with centralizing workloads, again. This time it was called "cloud".
Now companies are moving back out to the client again. This time, they call it "edge computing". Again, the justification is claimed cost savings.
5-7 years from now the cycle will repeat itself again, with a new name for the same rubber band motion, always claiming cost savings.