The email system is internal and probably even the desktop pattern is fixed. Well, it certainly flies in the face of the 1990s, with its kowtowing to client-server computing, local storage, open systems, unrestrained communications and graphical user interfaces. It was the decade of the knowledge worker who, equipped with Microsoft's arsenal of applications and myriad formatting options, became the master of the presentation, the new business pitch, the what-if scenario. In 1997, Nicholas Negroponte could say without irony that Europe was full of the 'digitally homeless' and risked becoming the 'third world of computing'. Information at your fingertips' was Microsoft's big idea.
Nobody wants the time-waster, and the guru was a pest, but the knowledge worker clearly has virtues.
However, there needn't be a return to the Roundhead world of dumb terminals beloved of Digital founder Ken Olsen, who once said, 'The secretary doesn't want to take her hand off the keyboard and run a mouse, so terminals will always be important'. Perhaps there is a third way where the viruses, security menaces and constant helpdesk call-outs are reduced, but the ease of use, creativity and scope for collaboration of the rich PC experience is retained.