> I use Linux servers at work. But multiple Xwindows into many
> different apps is taxing on its own on your PC along with all
> the local apps you may be using. I have a desktop (rebuffed an
> offer to switch to laptop a few years ago), my boss chose a
> laptop. I sit close enough to hear him swear when things bog
> down on his laptop when he is doing a bunch of EDA stuff with
> many dozens of windows in the background. Or overheat and
> crash/shut-down/spontaneously reboot. Or discover his charger is
> defective. Why don't you look up figures for typical
> MTBF for laptops in a corporate environment. It ain't pretty.
I use Linux servers at work as well and we have Sun Global Desktop and VNC or straight X-Windows into the development servers. I've never had a problem with performance or capacity on my 15 inch MacBook Pro. I was using my 2008 MacBook Pro before that and upgraded to the 2014 version for better memory, performance, and faster SSD, bus and network. The replacement cycle time for Windows laptops is 4 years and 5 for Macs. So that's our assumption on how long things last.
> Yes my wife is an accountant and her previous employer switched
> to a cloud based operation. Nothing better than an office full
> of highly paid specialists and managers sitting around doing
> nothing because of a network outage, or misconfigured/mismanaged
> software at the provider. I am not sure they ever met regulatory
> requirements for customer data retention and privacy. The big
> wheel will turn again.
Did her previous employer develop their own internal cloud and their own software products? We have 25K engineers on our development cloud. You better believe that it rarely goes down and that there's geographic redundancy. I'm personally not a fan of consumer clouds because of privacy and security reasons but internal clouds are different.
> Yes, flexibility like more employees than offices. Dump them
> all in open areas. Great metaphor for the relationship between
> employees and employer at some companies today. Don't let the
> cattle feel too comfortable.
Most developers have multiple monitor systems in KVM style with their laptops. Kind of hard to do open office plans with those setups.
You could do the same thing with desktops too with the right configuration.
> Yeah I get it. You are well into the laptop kool-aid.
It's simply more efficient and flexible for me. And most where I work agree.
> Fill yer boots. Enter spreadsheets on your smart phone for
> all I care. I just don't accept your view that a laptop isn't
> a significant compromise in personal computing in terms of
> usability, flexibility, reliability, or value for money.
Well, you disagree with a lot of people then, including upper management at many Fortune 500 companies. BTW, do you know what Google provides their employees? Mozilla? Apple? IBM? Microsoft?
I use the right tool for the job. No need to be inefficient.