Not so special

The history of computers has been the history of things becoming not special.

First were the mainframes. Large, expensive computers ordered, constructed, delivered, and used as a single entity. Only governments and wealthy corporations could own (or lease) a computer. Once acquired, the device was a singleton: it was "the computer". It was special.

Minicomputers reduced the specialness of computers. Instead of a single computer, a company (or a university) could purchase several minicomputers. Computers were no longer single entities in the organization. Instead of "the computer" we had "the computer for accounting" or "the computer for the physics department".

The opposite of "special" is "commodity", and personal computers brought us into a world of commodity computers. A company could have hundreds (or thousands) of computers, all identical.

Yet some computers retained their specialness. E-mail servers were singletons -- and therefore special. Web servers were special. Database servers were special.

Cloud computing reduces specialness again. With cloud systems, we can create virtual systems on demand, from pre-stocked images. We can store an image of a web server and when needed, instantiate a copy and start using it. We have not a single web server but as many as we need. The same holds for database servers. (Of course, cloud systems are designed to use multiple web servers and multiple database servers.)

In the end, specialness goes away. Computers, all computers, become commodities. They are not special.