纽约时报：苹果展望电脑新纪元 重演淘汰软盘_业界_科技时代_新浪网
纽约时报：苹果展望电脑新纪元 重演淘汰软盘
导语：美国《纽约时报》网络版今天发表署名尼克·比尔顿(Nick Bilton)的文章称，苹果将借助云计算服务取代DVD和CD等光盘存储介质，重演十余年前淘汰软盘的一幕。
以下为文章全文：
还记得软盘吗？我打赌史蒂夫·乔布斯(Steve Jobs)肯定记得，我还打赌他肯定记得他是何时灭掉软驱的。
确切地说，是1998年，而凶器就是新款iMac，一款缺乏当时被视为标配的内置软驱的电脑。
乔布斯上个月又敲响了另外一项技术的丧钟，那就是DVD和CD等光盘。
在新版MacBook Air的发布会上，乔布斯表示，该产品是下一代笔记本电脑。MacBook Air的广告也重复了这一观点，并且通过旁白将这些产品称作是“下一代MacBook”。
换句话说，别指望今后的Mac笔记本配备DVD光驱，今后的Mac台式机同样如此。
苹果希望用白绒绒的iCloud替换这些光盘。在这里，软件、音乐、视频和你自己的个人内容都可以像欢快的海鸥一样在海滩上空自由飞翔。
苹果在进军电脑新纪元的过程中要面临很多挑战。
作为一款提供在线存储和数据同步功能的服务，MobileMe成为苹果过去几年间最大的失败。尽管该服务目前的状况相对还算不错，但仍然很贵，年费高达100美元，而且iDisk存储软件的速度也远慢于ZumoCast和Box.net。
不仅如此，苹果还要挑战谷歌，后者诞生于“云中”，而且还针对云计算时代开发了多款成功的服务。
对乔布斯而言，这都不算什么新闻。上周有报道称，苹果斥资10亿美元打造的50万平方英尺(约合4.6万平方米)数据中心已经准备对企业开放。而苹果CFO彼得·奥本海默(Peter Oppenheimer)最近也曾表示，数据中心“随时”可以开张。
当这座位于北卡罗来纳州的数据中心准备就绪时，人们便有望在Mac电脑上看到大量云计算服务。
无需恼人的电线，图片和音乐也在电脑之间随意传输。你甚至可以想象，有朝一日，电脑操作系统不仅仅是一个桌面系统，还是一个云系统。在这种情况下，任何存储于电脑中的文件都将自动导入云端，使得用户可以借助iPad、iPhone和其他苹果设备访问。
但是苹果并不急于将所有人和所有事都引向云端。苹果希望因势利导，而用户则有可能会逐渐看到这些变化。
但有一点是可以肯定的：准备将那些旧DVD和CD与你的录像带和软盘打包放到一起吧。(书聿)
November 2, 2010, 5:05 pm
Apple Looks to a New Computing Era
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images The new MacBook Air doesn’t include a DVD slot.
Remember the floppy disk? I’m willing to bet Steve Jobs does. I’m also willing to bet he remembers when he killed it.
It was 1998, to be precise, and the murder weapon was the new iMac, a computer that was missing the then-standard internal floppy drive.
Last month Mr. Jobs rang the final death knell for another piece of technology: optical discs like DVDs and CDs.
For this execution, his weapon of choice is the new MacBook Air, with a little extra help from the iTunes store, of course.
During the unveiling of the new MacBook Air line, Mr. Jobs said these computers were next-generation laptops. This was reiterated in the commercials for the computers, in which a voiceover calls them “the next generation of Macbooks.”
Left, Paul Sakuma/AP The 1984 version of the Mac included a built-in floppy drive.
In other words, don’t expect a DVD slot in your next Mac laptop, or your next desktop computer for that matter.
Apple hopes to replace those discs with a fluffy white iCloud, where software, music, video and your own personal content fly around in the air like happy seagulls at the beach.
Apple has a lot at stake with its move to this new era of computing.
The disastrous launch of MobileMe, which offers online storage and syncing between devices, was one of the company’s biggest flops of the past few years. Although the service works relatively well now, it’s still very expensive, priced at $100 a year, and the iDisk storage software is much slower than third-party products like ZumoCast and Box.net.
To add to the pressure, Apple is also up against Google, a company that has essentially grown up in the cloud and built a number of successful services for this next era of software.
None of this is news to Steve Jobs. Last week a report noted that a $1 billion, 500,000-square-foot data center that the company has been working on for years is getting ready to open for business. And Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s chief financial officer, recently said that the data center would open “any day now.”
When the North Carolina center is ready, people can expect any number of cloud-based interactions to appear on their Mac computers.
Photos and music could begin to flow between computers without the need of pesky wires, and you could even imagine a time when your computer’s operating system isn’t just a desktop, but a cloudtop, where any kind of file saved to your machine is automatically beamed into space, accessible on iPads, iPhones and other Apple devices.
But the company isn’t in a rush to switch everyone and everything to the cloud just yet. Apple wants to get it right this time around, and customers will likely see these changes happen slowly.
One thing is for sure: get ready to stuff those old DVDs and CDs in a box with your video tapes and floppy disks.
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