Although I see the uses for business in this as already highlighted, this excites me more for home use, incorperated into the 'digital hub'. I think we will have to wait for the 970 however for it to be full realised as it could be a resource hog...I'd like ultimatly to see a powerful xServe used as a home server, stored in a cupboard just like most people have a central heating boiler these days. For the recent future though a PowerMac 970 will have to do. What I see is a main server and maybe a few other regular computers in the house hold, depending on a familys needs (gamers and people that do editing or intesive work will need a regular computer in their room/study for example). Then the rest of the computers in the house that are just used for light work could be thin client tablets or desktops. So if say little sister or the wife/girl friend whatever just web surf's and chats with friends then they could tap into the main computer(s) by remote graphical log in and using it's resources, with limited ram/hard disc and embedded processor for caching data etc. This means that the thin client desktops can take up less room and thus look nicer in the home and you can move around the home with a tablet version. So if you are busy at work in the home office and then the match comes on, you can just pick up the tablet and watch the footbal on the sofa while continuing where you left off cause the tablet can access all the study computers resources and what was on it's screen aty the tme (your work), meanwhile of course someone in the other room is accessing the same computer but logged in as another user and doing their own thing.
Whats even more intresting is thats just a basic idea of the concept that possible with WiFi technology, what happens if you add Apple inovation...there are many other possiblities.....co-operative working between different people n the same data, usefull fror team meetings and people that work together (ok thats more of a business one), mobile phones with an apple thin client that when come into range of the host computer(s) via rendezvous and bluetooth or WiFi can access the broadband connection and resources of the server and also change to a landline phone (well an internet landline phone), and acts like a cordless phone or something. Then there are other appliences that could use this and rendezvous, like the hifi that can log into the host and use the person logged in's play lists or be logged in as its own user so it can run whatever tasks it may need such as getting cd information, info about radio shows etc from the web. Then Tv's in the living room could act as a thin client so that you can surf the web, work on documents etc from the tv using the servers power (no need for an ugly dell/HP media edition box next to the tv - the thin client could be built into say new sony and philips tv's or as a hifi seperates shaped box that sits in your stack and also acts as a tivo). I'm sure there are many other possibilites. Guess I'm dreaming a bit much though.
(unless, of course, mosr actually guessed right for once...)
