The great paradigm changes we've seen in the last four decades are: Offline –> Mainframe –> Desktop –> Cloud –> Mobile.
Under the seven-year deal, Hewlett-Packard will manage an array of the bank's computers, from large mainframes to desktop computers.
Over the past few decades, Brill notes, there has been an oscillation between using centralized I.T. resources and using more dispersed computing power — a battle between mainframes and desktop computers.
In this way, interested parties have been able to build Linux for every conceivable computing platform: from mainframes to desktop computers to telephones to embedded devices inside televisions and automobiles.
The notion of pervasive computing -- computing liberated from mainframes and desktops, embedded in everything from appliances to hand-size devices -- has been around for a long time.
As mobile wireless devices such as iPhones / Blackberrys are added to an IT infrastructure that already includes mainframes, servers, desktops, laptops, and multiple generations of networking technology, IT organizations will have to come up with a unified, streamlined way of doing things.
The spread of smartphones means many more connected devices, but also devices that get used much more often; as with computing when it moved from mainframes to desktops.
