An internet of digital agents didn't look likely at the time. But 15 years on it is beginning to take shape as one vision of the computing cloud. Apple's iCloud shifts the centre of personal computing from the device (PC, Mac, smartphone, tablet, whatever) to the cloud. As Steve Jobs said "We're demoting the PC to being just another device".
There is another vision of the cloud, as a hard drive in the sky (dropbox for example) which lets you store files remotely. It's a great model. But it might not be around for too long. The iCloud model does away with file-syncing altogether. If anything it is data-syncing. And it is transparent - you don't have to do anything to have a photo on one device appear on another.
The first implementation of the cloud was file-oriented. The second implementation, which will benefit Apple at Microsoft's expense, is data oriented. And a cloud of data may be the beginning of a new app-oriented, intelligent-agent Web.
And what the Wired article shows most is the benefit of having a good clear vision and sticking to it. Apple has done that, but Microsoft hasn't. The huge cash mountain at Microsoft has disguised an underlying lack of vision for a long time; even (maybe especially) the purchase of Skype is a sign of playing catch-up
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