These Times They are really changing (there really is a free lunch right now)

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Microsoft Word is dying. It is dying in personal, educational, and online business computing (it will take longer in the established business realm). In education, young Turk's are moving us to an online world of Unix (OS X /Linux). In this world the cost of the software to run the computer, whether it's a server or a person's computer, is virtually free–and it doesn't use Microsoft.

And you don't need Microsoft Office, especially Word. Why? Because application software, such as Microsoft Office, is virtually free on Linux or OS X (I can get iLife and iWorks for $78). It doesn't use Microsoft. (School administrators take note; are you using or moving to Linux or OS X?)

But Word is dying regardless of low cost or free alternatives. Word, and really all of Microsoft (except server stuff), are dying because Web 2.0 is killing it. (Check out this article by the Al Gore of Web 2.0 for a really interesting and thought-provoking article generating a vocabulary for Web 2.0.)

My proof that Word and Microsoft are dying? This very article! You are reading something I wrote that took me time, thought and reflection–my homework if you will, because I am always a student, a life-long-learner, at 54 years of age. And I didn't use Word! In fact, I didn't use iWorks or any of those free Linux applications either. So how did I create, edit and publish my "homework"?

I blogged it! And it was free! No software to purchase, no software to download, no software to install, no service packs to find, download and install, no updates to buy and install, no.... (Of course you realize that I am not considering the cost of my broadband/ISP which in my area goes for as low as $20/month. It's a utility cost like water and gas/electric buried in a phone or cable bill.)

The local computer, whether PC, OS X, or Linux, is becoming a local playback device, a platform to the Internet where the real computing is done on massive server blades with terabyte sized databases, providing rich data-mining and personal profiling opportunities that generate wealth for the Googles of the world, and power for the government. My local computer of choice right now runs Apples' OS X because I just love the simplicity and power of the OS, iLife, iWorks and the online .Mac. But really I don't iLife, iWorks, .Mac or Office very much because all the stuff I do, like this blogging, is done on a server somewhere on the web–in the "cloud".

Progressive school cultures–my current domain–will continually employ, embrace and explore Web 2.0 (and Web 3.0, Web 4.0...Web n.0) for the "future belongs to a very different kind of person with a very different kind of mind–creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers and meaning makers. These people–artists, inventors, designers, storytellers, caregivers, consolers, big picture thinkers–will now reap society’s richest rewards and share its greatest joys." (Dan Pink A Whole New Mind).

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