Occasionally connected computing architectures

As the price/performance of notebook computers and other mobile platforms grows ever more compelling, the desktop computer's days are numbered as the dominant business-computing platform.

This trend has interesting implications on the future of enterprise

application architectures. Today's centralized architectures require persistent connectivity. Even in a world with stationary employees and desktop systems, this architecture has been rife with problems due to the performance and latency issues inherent in accessing centralized applications. In a world where employees and systems are mobile, this architecture simply doesn't work any more. Persistent connectivity is impossible in a mobile world, which means it is also impossible for employees to access their enterprise applications when they need them most-when they're in the field doing their jobs.

Intel's recent Centrino launch has added considerable momentum to the mobilization of business computing, by making mobile and WiFi platforms far more affordable than was previously possible. As part of this launch, Intel publicized the notion of "occasionally connected computing"-that is, applications that keep working productively even when there is no network connection-and encouraged application infrastructure vendors to deliver products to support this new vision. After all, a mobile-enabled platform loaded with "immobile" applications (those that require persistent connectivity) is not mobile at all.