MicrosoftJohn Stephens appears to be the only one who understands the situation.
Let me break this down very clearly. I deal with global community computing on a large scale, so I tend to make dumb (yet reasonably accurate) summary pictures.
Two models of computing:
a) I am mostly online. I'm willing to limit my computing in some ways to situations where I am, or can eventually get, online.
b) I require 100% offline computing capability. I can't always assume online is available.
Now model "a" is unquestionably popular today. However, I'll postulate that it will never become the only model. (Security and disconnectedness are two such reasons.)
It was stated above that the new OneNote "supports offline access." That's NOT the same as 100% offline computing.
- Can I install and fully configure the software, 100% offline?
- Can I create, edit and delete notebooks, 100% offline?
- Can I import, export, share, etc notebooks, 100% offline?
To solve the "last mile" problem in much of the world requires communicating face to face in some way. SneakerNet as some may recall. An online-only tool is wonderful in the West. It's useless in other places.
In fact, for many people whose office is the outdoors, it's simply painful to always have to find an online signal to get anything done. I live in Colorado. Most of Colorado's land mass is offline. For that reason, I use offline GPS mapping software. Online-only is useless.
While unquestionably a lot of people are Internet-connected, please allow me to enlighten you about the world we live in:
* 100% of all measurable Internet content consists of 184 languages in the *largest* survey I could find. If 100% of all of those speakers had Internet access, we would have 85% penetration.
* To hit 99% of the world's population requires well over 1500 more languages.
* (There are almost 7,000 living languages today, each one very distinct. NOT dialects. As different as Dutch and English.)
Some of us care about all the people of the world, not just those in well-connected places.
I hope that helps!
Pete
