A number of significant trends can be observed in the computing environment over the last decade, and accelerating into the next:

• hardware is getting smaller, faster and cheaper;
• software is getting more sophisticated and easier to use;
• networks are getting more robust, faster and wider, and are extending to the farthest reaches of the globe through the use of satellite links;
• problems deemed amenable to realistic investigation are getting much more complex in nature, and larger in terms of both size and the number of cycles needed to address them.

All of these and more contribute to the growth of interest and investment in distributed computing, which has even reached our pocket-computers with their infra-red communications-ports and their ability to interconnect one to another and to PCs. Why, did you know that there's a start-up company in Silicon Valley calling itself Network Appliances, and that they're only half-jokingly talking about adding an interconnect to your toaster?

It'll take a Dinosaur-Killer or other similar civilization destroyer to close the curtain on distributed computing.