Like a universe that finally feels the pull of its dark matter gravity and starts to pull back towards its singular moment of creation, the massive PC market could be facing the same pull on its further expansion.

The onward rise of the PC microprocessor, more powerful and complex than ever, won't be stopped by Moore's Law. It will much more likely be stopped by the fact that it becomes cheaper, and better to do the processing on a large computer system, rather than on a PC, no matter how fast the PC microprocessor.

It is a thin client/fat server world developing, a world that many predicted and many debated in the late 1990s. But this time, there won't be much debate because it is an obvious and irrepressible trend.

The black hole in the middle of the PC world is the growth of massive computer data centers, which perform increasing amounts of all computing work on the planet, and the web.

The processing power that was kicked out to the edges of the computing world, in the form of the personal computer revolution, is now rushing back in towards the middle.

Thin client deja vu

The debate over thin clients or fat servers in the late 1990s went on for many years and produced little. Because at the time we didn't have all the pieces, the changes, the culture, the technologies, the tools.

Now, the thin client/fat server trend is happening--rather than being debated. And you will see client devices of all stripes, including the PCs, becoming thinner and dumber, and all providing richer user experiences. Users won't know and won't care how fat or thin the client is--it'll be transparent.

Aggregators of machine cycles

This trend is being enabled by companies such as Google, Yahoo, Ebay, MSFT, IBM, and the large telcos; all are building massive aggregations of computer power to support the large web based commercial/collaborative applications companies are using.

Increased broadband access also helps this trend as large computer centers suck in more data packets, process them, and kick them back out--faster than a PC could.

We will all timeshare a big computer in the ether(net) and we already do much of the time now (Google). It's back to 1965 and Doug Engelbart.

The PC of the near future, just needs to decrypt and render pixels and audio bits--jobs done very well by inexpensive multimedia graphics chips, much cheaper than a general purpose microprocessor.

Dumb hardware and dumb browsers

You don't need sophisticated operating systems or browser software because the new types of web services applications such as the AJAX type, carry their processing with them.

Smart people, smart communities

Importantly, PCs/notebooks/mobile phones would be affordable to huge populations that otherwise wouldn't be able to get online for decades.

Think how such a computer architecture model could accelerate global development?

As opposed to the current attempts to slash PC prices by making ever more powerful and complex PC microprocessors.

We can get to the promised land of digital experiences for all, all the time--much faster with this type of computer architecture.

The graphics/audio processor then becomes the key chip. It has to handle the sights and sounds of a PC at lightning speeds.

Similarly, make the PC OS/browser simpler, not more complex.

Of course, in such a scenario I am assuming we have ubiquitous broadband access anytime, all the time, anywhere. Which we know will happen. And so will the rest. imho. :-)