Discussion on:

How to prepare for the end of the PC era

"The end of the PC era?" That's a heck of a big leap. Actually, it should come as no surprise that memory for mobile devices has eclipsed orders for PC memory (for now, at least). DDR3 has been out long enough for it to already be in place in the majority of desktop PCs. In other words, the initial sales have been made. Also, unlike mobile devices, that memory can be easily transferred to a new desktop. Let's also not forget that there are still plenty of people buying, for example, their first tablet. Most of the people who need a desktop for work already have them.

Leaving that argument aside, why would an increase in mobile device sales spell the end of the desktop "era" anyways? The devices meet different needs. I can assure you that I would much rather be typing these comments on this desktop than on any mobile device I own. The same most definitely goes for reports, spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations... the list goes on for quite a while. If you want to truly see "end user revolt" then take away the desktops from your advertising department and make them create your company website, YouTube video ads, 15 sec television commercials, or even a full page ad in a newspaper with tablets and smart-phones.

However, since this is a least the quadrillionth article predicting the doom of the desktop by way of mobile device -- perhaps it is worth our time to ask why. I sure there is more than one reason, but I can't help but feel that the primary reason is that the people making the claims tend to be executives like yourselves. For chief executives, this transition might well be possible. But isn't that because you have people to perform for you those tasks I listed above? I am curious, though... have you done away with YOUR desktop?

Finally, about IT becoming the "dreaded dumb pipe." If your company has in-house IT, I would suggest that you take some time one day to hang out and see what it is that they really do. I notice from your company website that you have several business degrees. Of course, that does not mean that you weren't a "geek on the side," as so many of us were back in the day, but even then, there is an incredible difference between IT as a hobby and working in enterprise IT 60 hours a week. The years it takes learning bash scripts, advanced networking skills, the ins and outs of effective security, database management -- well, the list is enormous -- keep modern companies running.

I mention this because you speak of savvy users bypassing IT protocols on their mobile devices. You sure this is a good thing? Or even a thing that is 'going to happen so IT folks should just get use to it and get out of the way'? Is there any data that you don't want your competitors seeing? I bet there is and I know that there is for most companies. Who do you think keeps that from happening (most of the time) and how do you think we do it? Allowing "savvy users" with inherently insecure mobile devices (especially in their hands) to "actively circumvent policies to make their devices work on a corporate network" could bring your world crashing down in a bad way (read: lots of negative $$).

One of the problems is that "savvy users" tend to think that their knowledge of using applications and devices is the same knowledge possessed by IT professionals. Sign up to take the Security+ or CCNA exams in the next couple of weeks and you might be surprised (and these are easy ones, let me assure you). Seriously though -- learn a little about IT security and hang out on some of the security sites and you will quickly see what a nightmare this can be (pay special attention to articles on "island hopping" and "privilege escalation").

One lost smartphone or tablet from a savvy user that has "hacked" your company network could lead you to learn the true meaning of "hacked" in the hands of someone with a true IT skill set. Sometimes it pays (literally) to listen to what your IT professionals have to say.

There might be a reason for some of those IT policies

Cheers

I totally agree, Who are these people ?? They speak from "Fadology," not fact.

Couldn't agree with you more, it's disappointing for an IT executive to utter such an uninformed or unqualified assumption. This sounds more like predicting that robots will replace human beings!

has in hands on computer work and how much is from sitting behind a desk reading magazine articles while someone else did the work. I know of lots of IT managers who graduated from college / university and went into IT management without any work-face experience at all.

I have those robots...http://www.heartlandrobotics.com/ cute lil things.
Actually I use medium to heavy industrial 6+ axis robot arms all the time to automate tasks. My assessment of the best use of a robot is when the job is given as punishment to a human its perfect for a robot.

I agree with you there are smart robots and they can only get smarter. I have a problem when people predict that robots will replace human beings completely forgetting that these robots need programmers. I don't mean replacing human beings in terms of doing work that traditionally was done by human beings, that is eminent. I mean robots ruling the world!

that's what I used to do, and it was one of the best jobs I had. ROBOTS RULE!!!

nt

Why can't robots be programmers? They will have dumb robots and smart robots, with some serving grease (humans will no longer exist) in fast grease outfits and others writing code. I mean, where is this going - there are plenty of people to do our work overseas - so why not have a robot do ours? Now all we have to do is figure out how to get a paycheck!

That would take a flow chart and turn it into a crude form of COBOL, and then you would tweek it to run correctly. I'm sure their is much better science in that area now.

BWC has summed it up pretty well. I think the folks touting the "End" of the PC era don't really know what the word means or are using it wrong on purpose to bolster headlines and get clicks.

What we are seeing (and have been seeing well before the so-called mobile revolution came along) is the plateau of the PC era. Sales have been flat for a while. These days even a low-end machine has enormous computing power and can handle typical computing tasks with ease, and more importantly, will be able to for years to come. The days of having to buy new hardware every couple of years to keep up are over. The reduced need for hardware upgrades is one contributor to flat sales.

Another sign of the plateau is saturation. There is very nearly a computer in every house that can have one, worldwide. (Of course not everyone can have one, but that's another topic.) Every room in my house has a computer and some rooms have more than one. Although there are some bookshelf and laptops in the mix, most are desktops. I'm not sure where I would put another computer if I got one, so I'm about as saturated as they come. Hard to sell me something that I already have.

So there we have it. Some folks might be able to come up with a couple more contributing factors to the PC plateau, but I think these are the two biggies. It isn't like PC sales are going to stop, they just aren't growing anymore. Big difference.

You're right on target. Because of the storage capacity and speed,as well as monitor size, the PC is here to stay. It is just taking a back seat for now to the current trendy technologies of the smart phone, etc.

Me to ITguy tasked with investigating "Yeah just let me swamp your server with a Finite Element Analysis then flood the network with the output and struggle to animate the output on a 7" screen".

I think i may have better luck hooking up the hdmi port on a smart phone and doing the task.

I hear y'all who say sub-PC devices won't replace your PC any time soon; as a user, I'll still favor my dawn-of-7-era PC over such "toys". But as a PC builder and tech, I'm interested in the long view, and expect things to change.

Right now, sub-PCs remind me of the "home computer" era, before the ugliest hardware platform took over, benefitting as it did by an open hardware market where anyone could build interchangeable parts.

Like ye olde Atari, Amiga, Spectrum etc. they are tribal; you have to commit to Apple or BlackBerry or Android or Windows Mobile or Nokia, and having done so, are locked into that tribe's software and peripherals. And back in the home computer days, folks who made "real" computers (mainframes, UNIX minis) discounted the PC threat as being to weak to do more than act as a slightly less dumb terminal for the big iron of the day.

Right now, sub-PC devices are too costly to attract me away from desktop and laptop PCs. But if production volumes of these become the dog that wags the tail of component production, you can expect these to fall in cost, while PCs stay where they are - that, plus a Windows that favors the new devices, will see mobile PCs evolve towards the sub-PC in UI and hardware ergonomics. Once mass-produced tablets etc. offer greater economies of scale compared to PC components, this price gap will widen - possibly fueled by the "open hardware" effect of a Windows that will run on them (or maybe Android will do).

What I don't like, is having a communications vendor acting as a toll booth between me and my stuff (apps, data) "in the cloud". I also don't like the lack of hard boundaries that allow anyone with the magic password to wipe all your devices from the Internet, as happed to that Wired writer.

I think these figures are real and significant - I don't buy the notion that masses of folks are carrying over DDR3 RAM from old to new PCs. For one thing, PCs young enough to use DDR3 are prolly too new to be worth replacing yet; for a more obvious thing, very few people actually dig around at the component level or build their own PCs.

Other metrics to watch, are the shift in malware attention from PC to cross-platform surfaces (e.g. Java and Flash rather than Windows and IE), and the cost per Meg of comms bandwidth vs. local storage. The latter is illusionary, as bandwidth has to be consumed every time a file in "the cloud" has to be used, but a lot of folks will be too dim to notice that.

as my PC and as cheap as my PC or has a cheap and easy direct feed to the brain, then the mobile devices have not replaced the PC.

does that well enough for me. As to using wireless, well, there are NO wireless hotpoints in my town at all. The only wireless is where someone has attached a wireless router to the adsl modem. Then it's over 40 kms to the next town and any wireless access. Sure I could go with something like 3GL or 4GL cell wireless links, but the cost of that is about 5 times that of adsl and I ain't rich enough to pay that - we pay for ALL traffic down here and that ain't likely to change this century.

A Tablet is no more like a PC than the computer controller in your car is like a PC, it's a very limited computing device, just like the car and the DVD player, but does not have the versatility and capabilities of a PC.

A top end ultrabook or notebook can come close to the full capability of a PC, but no other mobile device can. Oh, yes you could set up some lightweight device that simply transfers data back to the Cloud service provider and let them do the processing, but that then gets you one HUGE bill for all the data transmission back and forth. In short, it's not a commercially viable option.

Right now the modern computers bottleneck is the hard drive.
According to Wiki, Sata 3 has a speed of about 600 megabytes per second.

If we instead remove all secondary storage from a computer and use the cloud instead, now your top speed is limited to your bandwidth.
In my case, my new speed would be painful, if I compiled a movie, it would upload at 60kilobytes per second, 10000 times slower than using local storage. If I wanted to edit it, it would download at 900kilobytes per second, around 600 times slower.
It would actually be faster to drive/fly to the cloud providers server with a USB stick and grab the file.


My math is probably wrong, but my conclusion isn't

We are going gigabyte speed in my area; will that beat Sata access at 6 Gb/s? I think so!

5% of the Australian landmass that has it, if that much. For most of the rest, we're lucky to get 512Mb/s most of the time, and many are lucky if they get 50 mbps.

No one wanted to build here so we started one of the first fiber networks way back when Sprint was renting backbone from us. It is an association owned by the public. Folks in Australia could probably do the same thing. We have a very sparse population here, but nobody minds paying for it ourselves.

I meant to end my previous remark with I DON'T think so!! But it is too late to cover up that mistake!

we probably could. It's legal to set up whatever you like on your own property, but there's all sorts of problems once you want to hook it up to the public network or run it over any public property.

that your country is so regulated. When we started our association, there was no internet, but the telcos needed high speed backbone through the center of the US, because our country is too big to economically spread the resources, we hired folks who were technically proficient, and they've had to learn a lot about FCC compliance, I'm sure, but in the interest of rural development, our government was willing to bend over backwards to get modern communications out to the sticks.

Our association has done so well, that it has bought out TCI, SWBP, and other big companies, that just didn't like the volume they were getting in the desert. That is just more gravy for us!

but we have less than 10% of your population and a much lower economic base. However, the legislation that's the problem goes back over a century to when the government decides to nationalise the telecommunications industry to be better able to control communications in an emergency - in those days it was only wireless and operator connected telephone. The laws have been amended slightly to suit changes since then, but they still retain overall control for the same basic reasons and because no bureaucrat will ever give up control on anything they have.

8 billion bits per second? I wanna live where you live.

Spouting stats and truths which are infact mis-informed and wrong.
But they can't be told, they have to learn.
Let them learn, we have.
They'll be back, give them their heady moment. Its quite funny to watch.

I wouldn't classify him as a know-it-all, nor would I claim he's perfect. Nor would I condemn somebody without first ensuring my grammar and spelling are perfect, that others do not dismiss me as careless in my work and therefore not qualified to judge.

There is strong differentiation between the office desktop PC and mobile devices in respect of the larger screen, 'real' keyboard, 7200 rpm hard drive and so on, but the hard drive is currently the serious weak spot for PCs that limits productivity (plus a few Win 7 bugs that no-one admits to). If desktop storage technology can actually move ahead in data rates possibly by much more extensive use of SSDs then the differentiation can continue and users can choose the best device for the job depending on the degree of mobility and security needed. Also someone mentioned that desktops are too expensive? No they aren't. Just have a look at the price of highly-performing mobile devices and the desktop with it's decent screen size can beat them in price/value.

mobile devices and PCs in a very positive manner.

I've got several spreadsheets that are wide enough to barely fit my 24" and 19" tandem monitor with multiple input and calculation cells to obtain the end results. I've opened them on my iPad and they're totally dysfunctional to attempt to use in a meeting. Yes the mobile devices are nice, but they'll not replace the desktop the way I use it!

....he'll wear the GoogleGoggles like everybody else who needs a portable, full-sized monitor on the go. Dontcha think? You may envy him his life-sized keyboard, though.

but if you recite it again you might believe it yourself

And more dumb ideas. Go figure, the two seem to be synonymous.

Chief Idiot Officer

It seems the higher you climb, the tendency is to move away from tech knowledge, and move towards business knowledge. If most of the job wasn't dealing with Business Politics, and bureaucracy, then maybe CIOs would be a go-to source for information. Sadly, that is not the case at all.

except swapping PCs or for mobile devices , never mind ones your employees just walked in with makes no business sense whatsoever, unless of course you have some vested interest in the tech...

... but VERY funny!!!

nt

I'm sure you are the Chief Information Officer for your organization, and I don't consider you an idiot! ! But then, you are probably CEO as well! Eh-wot?

That is Chief Sweeper and Chief Cook and Bottle Washer, I do everything now and am a lot happy without no boss yelling at me or telling me to do illegal things.

I'm NOT going to use computers like this, ...

http://magisteria.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/scribe.gif

... period. It's clumsy, and non-ergonomic.

Retail, where the last thing you want is leaked payment card information because somebody's iPhone turned up in the wrong place.
The military, where the last thing you want is for classified information to be compromised because somebody's Galaxy showed up in the wrong place.
Medical, where the last thing you want is for medical records to become public knowledge because somebody's iPad showed up in the wrong place.
Financial, where the last thing you want is for executive salaries and bonuses to become public knowledge because...well, nobody likes the bankers anyway.

That's pretty much the American economy today, isn't it?

...is this article. Aside from one piece of advice, that IT touch base or something with new hires, it provides nothing of value. Even if I accept the premise that PCs are on the way out, this article in no way prepares me or offers suggestions to ease that transition.

Of course, the biggest thing standing in the way of any switch to mobile devices....is the true nature of the workforce at most companies. A small percentage of workers qualify for the moniker "mobile." Most are still chained to desks, because otherwise managers cannot see if they are doing any work. And, as long as they are largely chained to desks, you are going to have a hard time prying their keyboards and 19" (or larger) monitors away from them.

If you spend most of your time at a desk, why would you want to do your work on a 10" screen with touch, rather than on a 19" screen with a keyboard?

You wouldn't, and until this reality of the business world changes, there will be only small changes in the needs of businesses.

We may, and I repeat, MAY be the Post-PC era for home users, but we are far from being in a Post-PC at work era. This is why Dell, HP and Lenovo need to get on the tablet and smartphone gravy train, because they need to continue to make money while businesses buy PCs.

By the time we truly enter the Post-PC era, we will look back at the "Post-PC era" talk of the teens and laugh. The Post-PC era will be truly underway when we have something to replace the PC, and a 10" screen is not going to replace anything at work. Now, it could be tablets that dock into big monitors, I don't know. It might be thin clients that we use at work in conjunction with our tablets. There are many paths it can go, or some combination of all, but we aren't there yet.

when roll-up keyboards and monitors become common.

Have you ever tried to lean back at your desk and type with a roll-up keyboard in your lap? And just where do you think that fictional (at this moment) roll-up monitor is going to "stand" where you can look at it comfortably ALL day? Hint: IT IS NOT. It is going to lay (hopefully) flat...
right in the middle of your desk. In your case that desk must be empty all the time! .i.e. You are not working at it!
Think. Not just parrot more idiocy. Comfort of the user will out OR you will have MANY dissatisfied users, workers, whatever.

Just a suggestion. I don't think we will be post-PC anytime soon. I like my desktop and laptop and plan to keep using both for years. I don't have a smart phone or a tablet and have no use for either at this time.

How about YOU think before you go off half-cocked with your condescending comments. You obviously took my comment too seriously.

Evidently I didn't see your tongue firmly planted in your cheek.

Maybe I have just had to deal with too much new and "innovative" technology recently.
Thanks for the gentle head slap.

is make your tinfoil hat.

It won't protect you from the radio waves, but it will help you fit in with the proponents of this self-serving drivel...

Hi there my name is shane and i am a pc technician and a hardcore gamer first of all computers are just more powerfull then phones and laptops and phones to come and laptops to come think of it a laptop with the same specs vs computers with the same specs what is better pc why well its because pc is simply bigger more air flow therefor parts dont overheat so the computer doesnt get slower and another thing playing a game on a phone and on a laptop insnt the same as playing it on a computer with computer yoy get customization you can customize it to how you want it thats how most people like it and also as for games the graphics first of all looks way better on pc and games just isnt as joyable playing games on a small screen with out surround sound or anything like that if you talking power pc comes first and will always be first and most gamers are looking for power i mea take a server for instance imagine a phone as a server or a laptop being used for one of those most powerfull server that handle alot of people on the network it just wont work out the phone with just crash overheat or breakdown coz it just isnt as powerfull as a pc for gamers pc will always be better and for gamers size matters and graphics and sound also the way you can make your pc look and the way is feels and with phones you cant upgrade you must just buy a new one where as pc you just upgrade or fix what needs to be fixed as for companys they need something reliable like a server to run a domain and what is a server just a verry big computer and verry powerfull i am a gamer and i wouldnt wana play games on a small screen and on a phone it just doesnt give you the same feelling as a pc or look so i doubt pc will ever end.

Many open programs at the same time, my keyboard and my mouse.

The figures presented in this article may very well be correct. However it does not prove the end of the PC era.
What it does imply, is that for many years consumers had to pay too much for all these consumer PC's. With the new and relatively cheaper devices consumer no longer buy PC's.
The many responses to this article shows the contrary. The amounts of PC's sold will drop,prices will increase, but the enterprise and individuals that need a little bit more than nothing will continue buying PC's in the next decade or so.

ask any gamer ask any person who actually knows about computers if they stop making computers they gonna lose alota money coz gamers like my self that spend alota money on pc parts and stuff wont buy any more companys like activision ubisoft will also lose alota money computer technicians will be with out work so i doubt it will ever end any body agree with me there is already new computer parts planed for the next 10 years or so i dot think its even close to ending and the thing is it wont feel right working on a phone then on a pc and alota people wonnt buy games any more i mean who wants to play games on a phone or on such a small screen certanly not me well all i can say is that only time will tell.

lol all the moblile phones put to gether i phone the new i phone 5 the galaxy note 2 galxay s3 cant match up to my pc as phones progress so does pc phones are just there not for home use but for when you traviling when you travil then its nice to check your email and stuff as you cant carry a pc but as for office and home use pc is more suited.

DONT YOU THINK!!!

Well, I guess I'm just one of those "bitter clingers" that Obama talked about when he was running the first time, but I'm nowhere near giving up my traditional desktop (or notebook, for that matter). The tide may be ever-so-slowly turning, but I can't see some dinky little iPhone or iPad taking over the corporate computing world by storm anytime soon. The guys I know & work with use their phones & tablets to talk, send messages & play games on, NOT in any case to do any serious computing work. I don't know about the generation of young punks coming up now, but there are literally millions of us "older guys" (40-60 years) who are going to keep on using exactly what we have been, just faster & with more RAM & mass storage than what we've had in the past. Besides, this BYOD crap is an open invitation to a massive corporate network meltdown, with its TOTAL lack of security & accountability. In this day & age of scarce jobs, I defy you to tell me the young skull-full-of-mush who would say, "Sorry, you can take this job & shove it!" if the IT Department didn't kowtow to his "demand" that his wimpy little iPad be allowed on the corporate network...

dont worry i a sure you th tied isnt turning computers will always be better then phones they have to keep making them coz of people hat wana do other stuff besides work like hard core gaming

1. Yes, sales of new PCs are down while sales of new tablets and smart phones are up. All that does is show that people have started buying more of the toys. Mind you, a lot of the smart phone sales increases are due to them NOT making or making available non-smart phones in many places.

2. There are no reliable stats on the rate of the destruction of old PCs. A major point a lot of people miss here is that the majority of new PC sales are for corporate roll outs and the next highest cause are the expanding population of new first time PC buyers. However, every corporate roll out I've ever seen has ended up with all those old corporate systems being sold on the used PC market, none go off to be destroyed (some hard drives with classified material are, but not the PCs) and the used gear goes on to be used for several years by people who can't afford new.

3. The number of used PCs in use in the world is probably several times, or more, than that of new ones sold in any one year. That's a lot of PCs out there, and they aren't going away any time soon. It's likely that the PC market is finally nearing saturation point after 30 plus years of growth. This will result in a natural slow down of sales rate.

Whilst I can readily believe that for consumers, the Desktop PC is becoming more of a niche product in the home now that laptops are cheaper than they were ten years ago and tablets are available on pay monthly contracts, the same cannot be said for the corporate environment. For the home user, replacing an ageing desktop PC with a laptop or tablet might seem might a more logical choice, particularly as a laptop can be plugged into existing peripherals at a desk and then be carried to the sofa, but any games enthusiast, amateur music or graphic design producer etc. would still the raw computing power of a desktop. But in a corporate environment, the idea that one day all workers will be typing out reports on an apple iPad or rendering 3D graphics on a Samsung Galaxy is quite frankly laughable.

It is worth remembering that the premise of the article stated that memory supply to desktops had fallen behind mobile devices for the first time. That still means hundreds of millions of desktops are sold each year, and simply shows that tablets are becoming an 'intermediate' device, sitting between mobile phones and desktop/laptop PC, in a quickly growing market.

Sure, a corporate executive might like to be able to use a tablet rather than a laptop whilst annotating a presentation or sending an e-mail as he takes the train home of an evening, but having a whole office full of workers sat hunched over a tiny screen with no keyboard, quite apart from breaking health and safety legislation on office ergonomics for correct posture, is not a feasible proposition unless those mobile devices are compatible with existing desktop furniture and peripherals, and can be 'docked' to the desktop. Even so, both iOS and Android have a long way to go before they can come close to the flexibility and interoperability of a Windows PC, or the efficient functionality of a Mac, and I've yet to see a phone that has anything like the spec of my laptop (Lenovo Z570 for the record).

If anything I think the importance of this article is that it shows IT departments all over the world are going to have to prepare for a time when their end users want seamless integration of data and communications between their static office PC, their home and business trip laptop, their mobile tablet device, and their mobile phone, an in particular the security challenges that poses IT departments. For that all important 'market sensitive' document that a high ranking officer of BigCorp Inc has started on his desktop at work, uploaded to the corporate network, accessed via VPN or cloud computing at home, and put the finishing touches to on his tablet vi the mobile network whilst travelling to an all important conference, the challenge is making sure that report is secure if any device is lost or stolen, and that the data connection cannot be hacked by ne'erdowells. Otherwise BigCorp might find themselves in trouble.

Let's see Smarphones have an average life of about what? 18 months. Smartphones are an expanding market, so how many get their first ever each day?

In contrast Desktops have long since reached their peak in deployments. The average desktop is replaced every how often? 4 years? maybe longer?

The average household has how many smart devices? I think the number is 5. How many computers? 1, 2? Sure Computers in the home are on the decline.

So yeah who is surprised by the fact that smartphone ram sales were higher than computer ram sales. Do they actually pay for an analysis like this?

So you are going to do away with desk phones at work? This, works fine for the Cxx and sales staff who are rarely at their desk anyway. But I have yet to see a smartphone with the power to quickly and easily transfer calls like a PBX can. I want to see some Cxx set up an 8 way conference call on his cell phone, not join one set it up. Go ahead I will wait.

In business - Sure you can do away with desktops and phones for Cxx and probably even sales, but just try to take desktops and phones away from secretaries. Seriously, I want to see your secretary try to juggle 3 or 4 phone calls at a time on a smartphone. I want to see your secretary type your letters on a tablet. Maybe paraleagls could do away with their need for desktops, and they would have no need for actual phones either. Surely programmers have no need for phones or desktops. IT has no need for a desktop, they can control everything from a tablet and phones just impede their ability to get work done.

Those who spend half their days on the golf course and the other half at business lunches don't need full blown computers. For the rest of the huddled masses that you gleefully ignore on your way out the door at 2:30 to get 18 holes in before dark that won't work. They actually need that computer to be efficient, and get REAL work done.

It is no wonder this country is going down the tubes with the people making 6 figure incomes coming up with a half baked analyses like this. The real sad thing is some Cxx somewhere will point to this and dump all the desktops, replace them with tablets and smartphones, and say 'Look how much neater your desk is. Then they will go tell all their fellow Cxx they are on the cutting edge. Meanwhile productivity falls off, repetitive and strain injuries go up, as does eye strain... costs rise, productivity falls and they scratch their heads, lower salaries, shrug, grab their golf bag and say, "see ya tomorrow".

email will kill the post office and no more trees will be cut down (would have been nice) and millions will be out of jobs!!! Everybody run! I agree that the ergonomics of people staring into their mobile devices while "being mobile" may tend to weed out some of the lesser desirable population tendencies and bring us to a "dual" device culture. Why do I always chime in when I feel cynical? I think accountants and others with lots of personal or real proprietary company data will have desktops and that networks will be divided into limited and non-limited attached devices. Many will still want to sit at a desk with real computing power. I know some Geo-physicists that can't do their job with anything close to mobile power - not for many years to come. I thought netbooks would be great! Until I used one and saw how the atom processor was junk.

I can see the reduction in PCs especially for home use and many office functions. That said there being said for companies and other things that require a closed network the PC will remain.

The screen size and how much work you can actually perform on a DT or mobile device determines if it's going to be useful in an Enterprise Environ......you can check things, but actually do work....I don't think so.

Lap top, not at all.

I'll just wait for the magic innovation fairy to fly over and sprinkle my company with mobile devices that integrate with and run everything and the elves that do all the work that needs to be done at desks.

Yes IT should be just that a dumb pipe. Of course for us IT is not development or research but they set up peoples PCs (except developers) and handle email and file servers/document repositories. But they do not have the science or engineering to do any development of anything other than web pages and word templates.
IT is overhead, an expense like finance or legal or HR and their only job is keep the network and email/office running and the borders secure. other than that, give me an IP address and get out of my road.

The shift from PC's to Mobile Clouds means that security & privacy are impossible !
Won't it be nice when the socialist democrats implement Obama-care and place everyones medical records on-line, to viewed, stolen, & hacked by evil fingers !!!

The end of the PC era? Hardly. Something, i.e., is needed to create the content that tablet and smartphone users consume. That "something" is a PC--defined as a full-sized laptop and/or desktop. Until such time as tablets and smartphones have keyboard that allow touch-typists to do serious data entry, PCs will remain in full force and effect. If and when tablets do come with a full-size keyboard, you have a two-piece PC (a laptop with separate display and keyboard units).

Yes its true, the PC for home use is already a dead issue. My next purchase will be a tab and I'm an avid user of laptops. Perhaps the iPad and the generic smartphone that ATT offers for my next upgrade. Corp world will lag behind, but per IBM's example: They already sold the PC business to Lenovo. Have a happy death. Bill Gate's worth still an astonishing 66 billion! But poor MS our fearless leaders lead is no more. Corp world STILL has not gone to Win 7. Bye Bye Microsoft and to all esp Linux a good day.

Don't you guys have anything better to write about than this tired, old and WRONG prognostication? Pretty ignorant, guys. No one that does any kind of meaningful work on a system will ever dump their PC for a phone/tab. Are you kidding me? I see the powers that be running around with their little tablets and it makes me laugh. And nothing can be more rude when you are in a meeting and you are trying to get something productive done only to have half your audience distracted because they are trying to squint and see that tiny little screen. I actually saw one such person try to type something and do some actual work on the thing and it was the funniest thing I ever saw. Let's just say he didn't get very far before he got frustrated and quit. And guess where he went? Back to his desk so he could finish the job on his PC. Oh yeah, PCs are dead for sure...

Don't get me wrong, mobile devices are great for staying in touch when you are out in the field etc. but they will never replace the work horse. NEVER.

Obviously PCs may come in a smaller form factor in the future, but the need for power and speed is still there, and I think that PCs meet that requirement better than Tablets. Obviously Tablets are a form factor preferred by young people because of their portability. They get done the things that they need doing, but wonder how many college students get by with only a tablet. I have 2 Lenovo i7 computers with large amounts of ram, and they are really enjoyable to use and you can easily multitask since ram is so readily available. I am using my desktop right now and ram usage is over 3 Gig with 8 Gig total. Most tablets come with 1 gig of ram and a few with 2. Also their storage is significantly less than most desktops. One of my computers is a Lenovo Laptop, and I now use that in place of a newspaper to keep up on things. If you want to talk about the end of something, focus on Newspapers!!! My future computers will likely be Notebooks since they are more portable. We can only guess what computers will look like 20 years from now. Remember what they were like 20 years ago in 1992? Not nearly as elegant as they are today. The future always brings change!!! Thank god for Tablets since they are allowing such a large percentage of people in the USA and the World to remain in touch with so many Positive things. I don't think that any of us would want to go back to 1912!!!!

I agree with Deadly Earnest. I don't even like notebooks because I frequently kit two keys when typing and hate the small displays. My next one will be 17 inch and I consider hauling a keyboard around.
I admit that I go back to the IBM 1130, 1800 and 360/25 so am too old to become mobile.

And it's about time we got some REAL computer screens, not the letterbox garbage that is presently sold as the end al and be all of cool... Seems those who design these devices have never worked on one... I sincerely wish we could get back to the 4:3 format or else, start producing our documents in Cinemascope (can you imagine trying to READ a document in such a format?)!

I've been saying that for a long time. The manufacturers play to the dumbed-down lowest common denominator among us. They must think everyone uses their PCs (both desktop and laptop for movie watching because all you can find are 16x9 screens. When I bought new monitor for my desktop, I specifically looked for 16x10 (1920x11200). Yes, it's widescreen, but it also has the same height as my old 1600x1200 monitors. Now you can't find them unless you are willing to pay more for it. The model I bought doesn't come in 16x10 anymore. Another thing they do is put 10/100 Ethernet in laptops for the masses. I was looking at some recently on HP's Web site and thought it was a misprint. I e-mailed them to clarify (saying that 10/100 is a deal-breaker for me even on laptops because even though I usually run wireless, there are times I plug in) and I got a response that said that according to their market research, most people didn't want or need 10/100/1000 anymore on laptops as they ran wireless. I also mentioned the 16x9 vs.16x10 thing and got some vague ambiguous response on that one. It's not just HP, they all are doing it. You can still find 10/100/1000, but those are in the higher-end (expensive) models.

I doubt we will see 4:3 anymore, but I can live with 16x10 if they would produce those. If not, I guess I can get used to 16x9. I bought a new Asus laptop for my son as his old one was starting to go. It's 16x9, but has 10/100/1000. I put it up to his old 4:3 unit and compared Web pages. There was actually 2 or 3 more lines on the new one so I guess the fonts are smaller on the new one to make up for the smaller screen height. Still like 16x10 better, though.

Your statement about " the end all and be all of cool" is exactly right. Marketing people. I have a saying about them (tongue in cheek): "There's a special place in Hell for marketing people."

nt

I did that search a month or two ago. There are fewer and they are a bit more expensive and are the "business-class" monitors (not that there's anything wrong with that). Mine are 24" 16x10. I bought a 28" model for my son to use with his Xbox. I'm just lamenting what I see as dumb moves by the manufacturers.

The author is wrong. The use and need for the PC has not changed, gone, or been improved upon. Tablets do not replace the PC because they are too small, fragile, slow, don't have a good keyboard, can't be used for long periods, have worse screens, hard to upgrade, etc.
They don't do what a PC does at all. They are for an entirely new niche, that did not exist before, and have nothing at all to do with the PC.

Phones & tablets ARE PCs.

nt

and washing machines
and animatronic toys

So actually it boils down to practicalities.

That just means that there are more teenagers than professional IT workers. Not a great leap.
And teenagers buy a new phone every year. I get a new Desktop/laptop every five years, maybe.

PC is PC! Tablet is Tablet. I love tablets, but my pc is still far much superior to any type of tablet in all ramifications.

1. We've had four old networks close down and all those millions of phones trashed,

2. We have millions stolen each year,

3. There are millions lost each year in places where they can't be recovered, like over the side of a ship etc;

4. There are millions thrown away as no longer wanted when people buy the latest fad phone;

5. Some people have multiple phones because they have a different one for each business they run plus a personal one.

That's why there are so many phones out there.

We should not forget that PC's are getting thinner and more energy efficient as well. It's only a mater of time that the power of a PC will quizzed into a divide the size of your iPad/Adroid Tablet. Now you tell me, which will you prefer to own, you extra lite PC or an equal sized Android Tablet? Watch out for Microsoft's Surface, give it a year and let's have this discussion again.

If you could make the thinnest thin book thinner, then you can make the smallest phone smaller. It's the supporting peripherals that put the constraints on size, keyboard and screen on a laptop. Power supply, connections and a convenient stand for your 23 inch flat screen on the PC front.

So virtual key board and sceen wired in your optic nerve or waaay less Kool aid are the ways to go

I have to agree with the others saying try doing spreadsheets on a small screen, and would like to say try doing CAD and Design work on a small screen and under powered device. I just don't see it happening.

What I do see is a possible shift of "home" users slowly migrating more to the cloud and using mobile devices/tablets and such. Even that is a bit far fetched, at least at this time.

Having used smart phones, tablets and the "new and improved" 13" laptops I am convinced that productivity, much less a users learning curve and security, has taken a back seat to marketing hype. It is amazing how the ubiquitous "must have" marketing has made otherwise intelligent people attempt to do serious corporate business on these miniscule screens and keypads. But, I do believe that the cloud concept will take hold and grow primarily because the companies that create software will finally have a real deterrent to the piracy of their software. This in turn will be the driving force that will bring back a modifed version of the old term "dumb terminals" which will significantly reduce the cost of desktop devices.

Think about what this topic is asking when it says "prepare" for the end of the pc era. I believe it is coming. I am an IT professional. I am a gamer(console and pc). I build my own systems and I service computers, networks, IP phones, servers and applications DAILY. The end of the PC era is not here but it is on the horizon. Everyone here saying the end is not coming are reinforcing their belief based on screen size, and ease of performing tasks - more specifically things such as keyboards, mice, etc. These devices are not systems but peripherals. What the hell are you thinking? Docks exists right now for things such as Ipads, that allow use of keyboard and mice. Mobile devices are both peripherals AND systems. I can change the channels on my tv with an android phone, remote control my pc at work, and do many many tasks.

I agree it is not the end of the PC era, but I do believe this is a valid thing to consider. Sure a 10 inch device is not suited for spreadsheets, AutoCad, or gaming for that matter. But if....no, WHEN these mobile devices contain the same power, then its over. What the hell is the difference between a tablet plugged into a keyboard dock with video output into a 27 inch monitor and someone who brings a laptop to work everyday sticks it into one of those docks and basically uses it as a desktop then when the day is over just rips it out shoves it in their bag and off they go.

The bottom line is this is coming into the picture because we can visibly see the transition happening. Laptops -> Netbooks -> Tablets. Look at anything and you can see this kind of transition. You think it went from vhs to dvd...nope. There is a transition that can easily identify a forward momentum or evolutionary change within any industry especially technology. It is always becoming smaller and faster. In a sense it is and isnt the end of the PC era. Sure Pc's will die, but in reality all that will happen is tablets will be the new PC. Again if I can hold in my hand a 10 inch device that can easily perform the task of a PC and screw around with it while at home, then walk into work plop it into a physical keyboard dock and click on things with my finger, while typing on a physical keyboard, and doing this on a 27" inch monitor, then Ill take it. I mean in that regard the tablet is a second screen, the system itself and a mouse all in one. In the dock and BAM dual monitors and physical keyboard. IT will exist, it is just going to be supporting mobile devices - security will change, devices will change but we will always be running around with some kind of "personal computing" device

In short, the PC isn't going away, but the form factor is changing.

If we can get a mobile with the power of a current top line PC, that same technology can and will be applied to the PC.
If that happens, the software boys wil then make use of those added resources for more gee-whizzery at least.

So you are operating of the fatally flawed perception that PC manufacturers are going to contribute to their own demise, and cease improving their kit to at least maintain their income stream.

Naive at best, don't you think?

You are talking about PC manufactures, which are in the industry as a business for money. If the PC simply evolves, then Intel will be making small processors for small devices, and the next generation of HP devices will be tablets. They already make slates, dell makes tablets, everyone has a hand in smaller and larger markets, it just so happens that after analyzing profits they will drop markets that fail to generate the income of others. Google stopped supporting office 2003 formats, even though millions still use them, potentially losing out on many many future customers that were considering moving to their platform. Most likely they do not want to pay developers and employees to work on and support outdated technology - not because there is no market, but because it is not the biggest market. I spoke with a MS representative about our accounting software GP2010. They explained how in the years coming they will be slowly moving support away from midmarket and small business into larger enterprises so they can evolve their product (and their price) to compete with SAP. It will always work this way its about money...period.

Sure we could be at a stand still with PC sales, but any money hungry capitalistic greedy PC manufacture WILL start jumping on the bandwagon, especially the fastest moving one. They will slowly reduce their market focus from PC to tablet, and slowly but surely PCs will not exist. I mean it has to happen eventually. If they are paying out for factories, labor, shipping etc on devices that are at a market standstill....they will not do it forever. I am sorry, I do not want the PC to die, but anyone trying to keep a dying industry afloat while losing money hand over fist doing it will have to stop. It is not about support of users, it is about survival.They would be borderline insane not to. Everyone keeps saying it is a "fad," or a "trend." Fads and trends are what shapes our culture and evolves it. From trends and fads, come the ideas and products. And these fads and trends are what move us to the future. The PC itself had to start somewhere.

You're overlooking the inherent problems in portable devices. It takes more effort, more advanced technology and more time to produce smaller/lighter devices that consume less power and produces less heat.

That's why PCs have been and will continue to be more powerful for less money. And when I need a PC that I don't intend to carry around with me, I'm going to take the larger, faster, and cheaper one. A docked tablet is just an expensive, underpowered PC.
I also expect all the businesses to buy the cheaper ones for their employees that work at a desk and have no need to carry their work and confidential information around with them.

they'll make their employees leave them at work anyway. Which makes the position even more nonsensical.