Zinio: TAKE BACK THE MESSAGING, Maximum PC | Apr-1...

TAKE BACK THE MESSAGING

AS A CLOSE observer of politics and messaging, I’ve noticed that the politician who controls the terminology, controls the message. Thus inheritance tax becomes a “death tax” and a $1 trillion tax increase turns into “revenue enhancement.”

The PC has long been a victim of this. Years ago, when the “do everything on the server” crowd tried to fight back against the rising adoption rate of PCs in companies, they pointed to the higher cost of PCs, and started calling their products “thin clients” and PCs the “fat clients.” No matter what your physical stature is, we can all admit that labeling something “fat” conjures up the image of some slovenly dude wearing a T-shirt stained by Taco Bell Fire Sauce. Rather than fight back with its own messaging by calling thin clients “weak clients,” the PC industry shrugged its shoulders and sheepishly accepted the label.

More recently, the industry, analysts, and media have embraced the phrase “post PC” as a way to describe the end of the PC. Rather than you sitting in an office all day under greenish fluorescent lighting processing TPS reports from a desktop, you’ll be using your post-PC device while reclining in the grass under the warm sun of the Hobbit Shire. Because that’s how we’ll all work in the post-PC world. Hell, why go to the office at all? Why not just tell your boss you’re working from a café today on your tablet? I’m sure she’ll give you the thumbs up.

I’m not going to let them control the messaging anymore. The “fat client”? That’s actually a “fast client” or “productive client” now. Oh, you say you can’t even view 4K video, let alone edit it, on your thin client or tablet? Perhaps you might want to use a productive client for it.

And just as the Mayan’s predicted: On January 4, 2014 (1.4.14), a gravity wave will obliterate all of the major PC vendors and hardware suppliers, leading to a post-PC apocalyptic world. With no fast PCs left in the world, editing of 4K video or converting 12GB of RAW image files from a 36MP DSLR camera can only be done on a post-PC apocalyptic device, such as your dual-core tablet. Also, those really long essays? They’ll have to be done by touch or on an exceedingly cramped and unreliable Bluetooth keyboard.

I don’t know about you, but I’m not looking forward to living in a post-PC apocalyptic world.

Gordon Mah Ung is Maximum PC’s deputy editor, senior hardware expert, and all-around muckraker.

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