Is the IT Pendulum Winding Down?

Are we finally nearing a time when IT's constant swing between centralized and distributed systems might be slowing to a stop? In the case of cloud computing, technology is now reaching the point where we can have our cake and eat it too. Cloud computing is new not because the technologies are new, but because this key combination of technologies has matured past a critical point.

If you've been in IT long enough, you've probably heard someone observe that, for as long as there have been computers, there has been a long, slow pendulum swing between centralized and distributed computing paradigms. From mainframes, to remote terminals, to timesharing, to PCs, to client/server, to mobile devices, to cloud computing -- the pendulum has been easy to discern, though much harder to explain.

In the midst of the constant change that is the IT industry, the idea of a stable, long-term cycle between centralization and decentralization is truly appealing: It would be comforting if something in the industry were as stable as the tides! The industry is all worked up about cloud computing now, but conventional wisdom says that soon everyone will be refocusing on what can be done locally with next-generation smartphones, or perhaps with cybernetic implants. It's never a long hop from comforting myth to received wisdom or dogma, and by now many people view the cycle itself as a law of nature.

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