Slashdot Mirror
The Dawn of the Post-PC era?
An anonymous reader writes "The "Post-PC" era may be near at hand, according to the findings of a recently completed market study conducted by eTForecasts. The study projects that Windows CE-based devices may outsell Windows-based PCs within 5 years. According to the report, Microsoft has made "tremendous progress" in positioning its Windows CE and derivative operating systems for use in a broad range of handheld and mobile devices such as PDAs and Smartphones, and only embedded Linux is poised to represent a major long-term across-the-board competitor to Microsoft." The Register has another story about the study.
PC's in any form will not be replaced by anything that cannot beat it in gaming quality. Until my palm can play a Quake, a Half Life, or a Freelancer BETTER than my pc, I'm not unplugging.
Pulp Audio Weekly - Geek News and Reviews
There will always be a use for wired PCs. This is exactly why Desknotes were made: It's a laptop computer and makes the employees happy because they have a cool little toy, but they still can't leave the desk because there is not battery on the unit, thus forcing you to be (1) tethered to a wall, presumeably in the office while doing work, or (2) carry a small power generator with you.
Handheld devices are great and all, but people want something that they can do everything on, all at once. When we see a handheld device that runs at 2Ghz (or equivalent speeds at a different frequency) and has a 17" screen on it, then it will be post-pc era. Tablet PCs have come close, and Laptops are there, but none of them are handheld.
The article talks about market share of embedded vs. oem distributions of operating systems, but I just don't see how the embedded market will span from the business users to the home BF1942 players and Kazaa users.
Work sucked, until it became unemployment, when it became slightly more tolerable. -Tet
Who the hell cares about WinCE? If that the post-PC era, we're all better off going back to punch cards.
Why do I h8 apple?
5 years is optimistic, but I would love to see it happen, the biggest hurdle for PDAs and portable computers is the battery life, power to the machines!
Posting useless rant since 2003.
But I can't help thinking that the phone / pda combo is really what's going to dominate this space before long. And that is a space where Microsoft is doing really rather badly.
Thankfully..
Just the thought of having a handheld be my primary pc makes me WinCE
Epoc seems to be powering quite a lot more phones these days then anything else. With the phone market so much bigger in terms of numbers then the pc market, let alone the handheld market, is epoc not poised to beat Windows CE?
Why does it not mention Palm OS? Is Palm tanking that bad, or does someone not want Palm OS mentioned as a competitor to WindowsCE?
This is the real signature
(Beats those shadows on the cave wall, don't it?)
Not that such anecdotal evidence would count but I've personally bought more handhelds than desktops already in the last two years or so.
This technology is moving faster, so there's more incentive to upgrade. And quite many of my coworkers are showing off their new Pocket PCs as well.
When men used to be men
One guess as to who funded this study. These "studies for hire" places are almost always questionable.
I'm sorry but 1.5-2 years of data is not enough to forcast five years in the future. Kind like those Funds that promise a 10% growth in two years.
This SIG pulled due to lack of funding. (This damn war is costing too much!)
Don't you know the post-pc era happened 7 years ago? Isn't everyone running java thin client machines? Heck, I do all of my office work through my web browser using Corel Java Office.
It will be much much easier on everyone when there is essentially no upgradability from machine to machine and we buy a new machine every 3 years.
While I personally have had very few blue screens using w2k for a couple years, I know that some versions of windows are blue screen prone. I'm curious what the average blue screen rate is for a hand held device. Anyone have an idea on this?
I think it would annoy me more if my hand held crashed than if my desktop did.
"Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
not until wireless (802.11 or BlueTooth) is widely deployed will tablet PCs take over. CDMA and GSM technology is a option but from what I understand the transfer rates aren't large enough to be useful.
smd4985
I was not touched there by an angel.
What does "post-pc" mean? I cannot tell from the articles linked what the original author intended. It would be very easy to interpret these articles as implying that handhelds will dominate the consumer's future over PCs. But this is not what the market data shows. It shows that handheld sales will dominate.
And what is the difference? The difference is this: I own a PC or two already. They work just fine for me, have plenty of power, and will be that way two years from now (assuming I don't want Longhorn or some other future bloated software). So I won't need to buy a PC. But I don't have a handheld, so I might choose to buy one. So might my wife. Or we might get a notebook. But the PC would still be our dominant mode of computing.
Perhaps this is obvious to everyone already. But the article is poorly written on this score and could easily lead to confusion, a confusion which then plays itself out in non-geeks running around thinking that geeks are saying PCs are dead. Then when we're still using PCs in a few years, they'll point and laugh at us for our silly predictions. Its happened before...
Will be around for a while longer... What I see in the future is the letting go of legacy and the refinement of the beige box into a hub of sorts. The embedded segment still has poor input devices and no matter how small and useful they could be until headway is made in the usability arena specifically regarding input then they are pretty tough and difficult to use for any long period of time.
The first manufacturer to start pumping out non-legacy machines that are smaller more aesthetic and can hold current media yet allow for new functionality that is found in stuff like MythTv, Freevo, Tivo, Windows Media OS etc etc etc with ease will be the next big computer manufacturer.. That is till the guys/gals over at the mit media lab find out a way to get better input devices for smaller devices. Whether it be voice operated or whatever etc etc etc.. you get the idea.
It's going to be great fun watching the marketing guys build their PowerPoint presentations on their cell phones.
Most of these smaller, embedded or handheld devices cost more for less performance compared to a PC. I don't know how well they will compete, until the price/performance ratio gets closer to that of the PC. Portability or embedability certainly factor into the equation, but versatilty and outright cheapness tend to matter to the average consumer.
Is it just me or has /. been really slow lately
I doubt this will happen for the obvious reasons already posted. Also with a portable device if something goes bad you can't really just simply swap it out, like a desktop. plus why would someone want to struggle with a tiny KB and display? portable is nice but is in no way geared towards total desktop replacement. granted some laptops are pretty nice but tablet PCs and stuff? maybe for people who just use a PC for a few specific apps...not me and not most people.
People get way too caught up in "what's going to replace what" these days. Desktop computers will always be around, they will merely be complimented (not replaced) by handhelds. Think of the desktop pc as your house. It's big, takes a lot of space, and expensive, but when you're in and stationary that's what you want. Now your handheld is your car. It's mobile, has lots of things similiar to things in the house (seats you could take a nap in while pulled off. trunk to keep things in. mini stereo system. etc). The car's mobility is a wonderful thing and allows us to live and work in a completely different way, but no time soon are people going to ditch their houses and start living out of their car.
;).
Laptops are like camper trailers. Bulky and tedious to carry around, but in a pinch they serve quite well as a below average house
With your WinCEtoster, WinCEcoffie maker, WinCEpencil, WinCEpaper, WinCEtoilet Paper, WinCEWinCE, etc.
Yes I can see CE divices out selling pcs, but only because they putting it in to every divice they can get their hands on. It might also be very hard not buy something that is CE enabled in the future.
These devices aren't taking over an old PC market, they are novel devices filling new niches. PDA? Replaced the paper Franklins. Cell phone? Replaces hard-wired (or even supplements it.) MP3 player -- walkman etc.
Just because sales of embedded devices are increasing and potentially overtaking PC's, does not mean they're replacing them...
And taking a different tack...
What do you think all the people working on all of the embedded devices are going to be working on? Tablets? Handhelds? I don't think so.
They're going to be doing the same thing they are now, sitting in front of a PC (or unix box, or whatever) and banging out requirements, design, and code...
Most work will still be done in the same way, 'cause a lot of the time a PDA/handheld/tablet just won't cut it...
So? Does this mean the CE based devices will be performing the same tasks the PCs were?
Almost certainly not.
Further, in five years Linux based PCs "may outsell" Windows based PCs. For that matter Macs "may outsell" Windows based PCs in five years. The point being, most pundits crystal balls have been pretty cloudy over the years.
For myself, I'm pretty sure I'll be buying new PCs at about the same rate I buy new PDAs - every two years or so as the new technology becomes too compelling to pass up. ;-)
The one trend I think will continue is the intrusion of "desknotes" onto the scene. These will be notebook machines that are powerful enough to completely replace desktops for 99% of computer users. I hope they'll plug into a (Hypertransport?) connection that'll allow external AGP and PCI devices in the docking station, providing upgradeable graphics at least when used in the desktop role. One hopes the processors won't run hot enough to really endanger the users though... ;-)
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
And they are basically guessing that windows CE will conquer the other formats, probably because they were paid by Microsoft.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Oh you meant.... nevermind.
It also occurs to me that if one was drowning, yelling "Help! I'm drowning and I lost my bikini top" would probably be m
We could be dealing with a phenomenon wherein Wince devices obsolesce faster than desktop boxen, in terms of fashion if not in technology. Sure, you could get by with last year's desktop PC or even one from the year before. But if you're caught with an old HP Jornada or a black-and-white first-gen Palm, you're going to lose face. Yeah, they do all the basic stuff, but Joe just bought a new backlit-screen, Wince-based XScale PDA that he can use to beam his baby's photos all over the planet.
So it's not that Wince devices are obsoleting PC's, it's just that they are obsoleting each other faster than PC's can, which generates more revenues as the marketing push for the next generation of handheld electronic frobnitz takes hold.
Well, that's just my $0.02.
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
I thought it was now the PocketPC? Or maybe even soon-to-be Windows XP Embedded if they decide to start using that for things like PDA's along with cell phones and other "devices."
Let's see... Right now Symbian outsells it's MS-rivals. It has all the biggest mobile-phone manufacturers behind it (Nokia, Motorola, SonyEricsson, Samsung, Siemens. And to add insult to injury: the former MS-Smartphone poster-boy, Sendo!). Now, contrast that to MS-offerings: There is one product using it (The Orange smartphone-thingie), it has only Samsung as a licensee (who also has Symbian-license), it's sales are dwarfed by sales of Symbian... And MS-smartphone is supposed to dominate the industry??? I think not!
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
In my mind, the only things that make people upgrade their PCs at all are games. Most people use their computers for chatting, browsing, email, games, and a -little- word processing - probably in that order. The game, hardware, and OS industry knows this.
As a result, all three industries work together to an extent. OSes need upgrades when new hardware comes out, new hardware needs new OSes, and games need both. Thus, they end up making colateral income for each other, as one component advances, all the others must. Otherwise, each industry would probably have stagnated without the other.
Now, portables, however, don't really do the 'game' thing. They're really just fancy web appliances with word processors. For most people, a WinCE device with a couple hundred megs of storage and a decent display/keyboard would be more than sufficient for all that they do (legally): just include solitaire, IE, and a couple chat programs with your basic loadout. I see this working for a large extent, especially with the convention of WiFi. I'm thinking a family of 5 (with, say, 3 internet addicts) would much rather spend 1k$ on 3 portable devices than 1 large desktop device that only one person can use at a time.
Price would have to be quite competitive, of course, since most people want gaming, too. Personally, I see embedded WinXP (or whatever equivilant product MS comes out with next) being more common than WinCE. WinCE is for low-end stuff.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
I bought a computer this year. I didn't buy it with Windows. Is this a case of me not buying a PC?
If I buy a PDA that doesn't have WinCE, will I not be buying a PDA?
This might be a useful comparison (Windows vs WinCE) within one company's market, but ignores a two things going on in the market as a whole. Now, maybe my PC purchase and purchases like it are small enough to be written off as statistical noise, but are those PDAs? I rather doubt it.
I don't subscribe to RMS's GNUtopian vision.
Can they run Linux?
Look into the company...it seems to be a one-man shop. If I remember the area its in correctly that's a residential address, I will drive by today to verify. This release is from a conshop.
I don't know about you, but I wouldn't predict the fate of a technology based on M$ products. How about the fact that new PCs are not as neccisary since the old ones are working fine?
Also, the adaption of a new tech is going to have it's burst, but it is premature to say that one is replacing the other.
TodayTM BillyJoelTM GoogleTMd for StitchTMes due to WindowsTM while RollerbladeTMing with an AppleTM and a PopsicleTM
If these devices are going to be held in hand, they better be lighter then air.
I can't see this happening until handhelds and small form factor PDA's move from their current closed upgrade paths to machines where I can install what hardware I want when I want. I don't know any PDA to which I can connect a satellite TV card and watch TV on my PC.
One thing would be nice is to have a consitant platform for development on but is it going to be Windows CE? Personally I don't think so but it will be intresting to see how it all plays out
Rus
65535.net - hosting and stuff
Cheap UK and US VPS
At first glance, did anyone else interpret this as a pro-Apple story?
Even the Linux zealots are getting on the bandwagon these days.
Have you ever tried to effectively work off a WinCe device? They're great for processes where you do the same task over and over, but actually trying to do any real work (translation: work that actually requires thinking in addition to just typing or clicking) is almost painful. The WinCe 2.0 OS is still chock full of bugs. I regularly have to reset my iPAQ because the OS has a memory leak (at least as far as I can tell; no apps running and the memory used count just goes higher and higher...). Don't even get me started on missing functionality in applications. Maybe embedded devices work better, but if the consumer version of the OS is anything like the embedded version, no thanks! Give me a realllly old copy of the embedded version of OS/2 any day, or Linux, or anything else...
Sure there a few commodity hardware vendors that ship pretty much the same WinCE devices as eachother: HP, Dell, Toshiba, Samsung.
But the market is much larger that that: Palm, Sony, Handspring, Ericsson, Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, Sharp, IBM, Apple,Sendo, etc that ship innovative produces based on the best OS for their needs: Symbian, Linux, Palm, Homegrown.
Thes vendors innovative devices keeps filling in the crack in the maeketplace - while the WinCE market is limited to Palm IIIC wanabees and friken-huce 'cell phones' that bing you back to the Motorola 'Brick' days.
Want a ruged computing device: Telelogix
Want a server in your pocket: Sharp/IBM
Want tunes: iPod
Want the web on you cellphone: Ericsoon 800
Choic, Choice Choice!
Where's the WinCE version of these deviced: don't exit.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
>The study projects that Windows CE-based devices may outsell Windows-based PCs within 5 years.
Last Saturday morning the sun rose where I live at 5:00. Sunday morning it rose at 6:00. Monday it did not, in fact rise at 7:00.
Sure, handheld/embedded devices will outsell PC's over time. That falls into the Bleeding Obvious category of statistic. Duh.
What the key question here turns out to be is this: What is a PC? If, by "PC", you mean monolithic desktop/laptop systems that use X86-compatible processors and run Microsoft Windows, well, then it's a no-brainer. That means Linux desktops will chip away at that, MacOS will chip at that, every Palm sold hits that figure - not to mention the WinCE devices. If a PC is defined as any sort of desktop/laptop general computing device - well, that takes the plot line out a lot farther.
The other thing to consider is that palmtop operating systems (CE, Palm, etc.) are penetrating ever-farther into the realm of consumer devices. So it's not an outrageous concept - but I don't think CE as an OS will ever pass Windows by itself. No friggin' way.
Will the combined sales of organizers, MP3 players, cellphones, DVR's, and other devices that can get and benefit from a useful embedded OS pass the sales of traditional X86 "PC's"? I'm sure of it.
But by the time this comes to pass, your MP3 player may well have more computing firepower than your desktop does today. And then PC's would likely be the niche devices.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
The article talks about handheld, consumer and embedded applications tied to WindowsCE. Of COURSE it'll outsell PCs, a PC is a single device whereas handheld and consumer devices cover a huge spectrum of goods. And when they quote a 250% increase in sales of hand held computers, notice they fail to tell you the exact number of sales to date.
Does it spell the death of the PC? No, wishful thinking at best, preemptive marketing at worst. This piece is spouting someone's paid marketing drivel, and it wouldn't surprise me if the path leads to Redmond.
Even if that is the case, it again shows that the people in Redmond learned from big old bad tobacco. Diversify! They knew long ago the gravy train from personal computers couldn't go on forever, and they also knew that consumer electronics would be thristy for more powerful embedded operating systems.
WindowsCE isn't all that bad, but certainly Microsoft is fooling itself if it thinks it's a one-stop-shop for an OS for embedded devices.
Yesterday we were going towards Legacy Free PCs, today we're all going to be toting around PocketPCs. What's on deck for tomorrow?
Um... what about Symbian? Or Palm? Or even Pixo, for that matter?
And let us never forget the ever-popular Pom Pilot...
handhelds/tablets/laptops/etc suck compared to desktop PC's, and they always will. With the way technology works, it comes out first on a larger scale, then eventually is perfected and compressed to a smaller scale for use in these portable devices. So what I'm saying is, it takes like 2 years to get "hardware-device-x" to work within a smaller area, while as the 2 years pass, "hardware-device-y" is now available for the PC/desktop and is twice as good as "hardware-device-x".
I heard the same story ten years ago about Network Computers. Cheap computers with no disk working entirely on network.
Where are they ?
I keep hearing about this "Dawn of the PC era", but the simple truth still stands. Handheld devices are great at a few simple tasks, calendaring, scheduling and other everyday/office tasks. They are also very good at communication, but they suck as a platform. The advantage the PC has is its multi-purpose orientation. It is possible to do virtually anything with a PC. The functions that a PC can do can be completely different from each other, unlike handheld devices which have very narrow use/ability. (Also, for handhelds to be truly functional, more needs to be displayed to the user, and that is hard with small screens.) Until the handheld platform becomes as diverse as the PC platform, the sun will shine in this era.
Free speech is getting expensive...
How can you possibly say that ?
Have you ever tried doing actually something on those gizmos ?
Ever tried to read a document or a fairly complex web page ?
User interaction on these toys simply suck, and until HUGE progress is made on that field you can forget about your futuristic scenario.
The things that they hope will be missing in these new non-desktop devices are:
Sorry. We don't want our dumb terminals back, and we don't want little gameboy like devices that tether us to the Man's information network.
Call me nuts, but I must prefer Windows CE to desktop versions of Windows. In my experience, on comparable hardware, WinCE is a lot faster, more stable, and far less bloated. A lot of this has to do with the reduced functionality along with the fact that it was made from scratch (more or less)- but WinCE does what I need from desktop Windows.
On Handheld PC 2000, based on WinCE 3.0, you even have a full version of IE 4.5. A little dated, yes, but it renders pages well enough for me. It does a lot more than the version of IE that comes with PocketPC, which doesn't d as much as the IE on H/PC. I imagine in WinCE 4.0 the IE will be derived from 5 or 5.5- even better.
Granted, I'm working on my own environment to completely supplant PocketPC on my PDA, run OS X on my notebook, and have been developing my PDA OS on a Zaurus (switched from an iPAQ and a Jornada 720 recently). That said, if I were going to buy a webpad that wasn't running Linux or OS X, I'd much rather it be running Windows CE than Windows 95/98/2k/XP. Hell, you can get a lot of Unix ports for WinCE even. I wrote a lot of papers on my Jornada 720 (with the nice built-in keyboard) using LaTeX. Pocket Word sucks, but WinCE could certainly accomodate a much better word processor, and 3rd parties have written them.
No, in current conditions, WinCE wouldn't be good for using as a gaming PC, but for almost anything else, it would be better for a lot of users.
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
Yeah, well also according to some other recent statistics I've heard: Drug use is on the decline and will be non-existant in 5 years, the green party will overtake the republican party in popularity in 10 years, and scientology will overtake christianity in the next 10 years as the most popular religion in the western hemisphere. *(source reuters). I wouldn't believe all the statistics you hear, (except these ones of course).
How many times have we seen this "post-PC" bullshit come and go? I've been around long enough to have seen it come and go several times.
Do you remember during the Microsoft anti-trust trial when journalists were saying the trial was irrelevant because new technologies were already making PC irrelevant and would soon put Microsoft out of business? Internet appliances, handheld devices, etc.
Just ignore it. It's crap.
I know this device isn't quite a PDA, but it's closer to it than the gameboy is - the nokia n-gage is getting closer to uniting a mobile, PDA and portable gaming console (http://www.n-gage.com/n-gage/home.html). But imo the two will exist side by side, just as gamers often have both a console and a gba (for example.
From reading the computer press, one might assume that *all* computer users are gamers. I wonder what the percentage really is. Practically none of my close friends or colleagues have anything to do with games.
Courtesy of snpp:
"Did you know that disco record sales were up 400% for the year ending 1976? If these trends continues... AAY!"
This post was generated by a Cadre of Uber Monkeys for Monkey-Man2000 (603495).
We don't need bloated hardware and software to design fast portable computers which run circles around Transmeta in speed and power consumption. We don't need commonly used bloated embedded operating systems either (yes this includes embedded forms of Unix, too). We just use a different approach. It has been demonstrated to work very well, and perhaps even offend a few people :).
This is the dawning of the age of aquarious.... the age of aquarious!!!!!
And has been for decades. The personal automobile outsells them by quite a large margin.
Well, unless, of course, you need a tractor instead of a BMW M5.
Oddly enough they are not interchangable. Go figure.
Come to think of it sporks outsell handheld devices, so replace your PDA with a spork.
The article is silly.
KFG
For me, the "post PC era" is when people stop treating thier computers as computers, and start viewing them as appliances. SFF PCs are a gateway into it where the PC becomes a set top box much like a DVD player or VCR. The xBox has the potential to be a major gap bridger, as the people that have modded it have found out. A subset of this would be a decline in "PC" sales as people start using the various "appliances" for tasks that they would have otherwise used a PC for.
Another definition would be an end to the trend of continued growth in the PC market and a return to predominantly just using appliances.
If you think education is expensive, you should try ignorance -- Derek Bok, president of Harvard
Call me crazy (again), but I can't wait until a PDA can replace my desktop/notebook. It got pretty close with the Newton, and could've within a generation or two (at most) of Newton technology.
Current PDAs suck, though. Very much so a step backwards. Even so, there are some good things, like the HP Jornada 72x and the Sharp Zaurii. Give me a Sharp Zaurus with a touch-typable keyboard around the size of the Jornada 720's (not just a big thumboard like the C700), a ~600 MHz XScale, some means of using a larger monitor and a larger res, and I'd be happy with all other features being the same with something like the current Zaurus SL-C700- 640x480 screen, 64 MB RAM, 32 MB Flash ROM, SD + CF slots. I'd sell my iBook in a minute if I could get one of those.
I have actually been using a Jornada 720 with a 206 MHz StrongARM CPU largely as my main machine. Wireless and wired web browsing, writing up reports (with LaTeX), email, SSH, and programming all on the device, never neededing to do anything silly like sync with a desktop. Hell, I probably would have sold my iBook and just used the Jornada 720 as my only machine, but the screen isn't readable at all out of doors- it isn't reflective like the Zaurus or iPAQ screen. Nor is my iBook's, but if I'm going to consolodate all devices into one, I better be able to use it for everything I currently use my PDAs and iBook for.
And I'm definately a special case in the general computer using population, perhaps more or less so with the nerd/programming community. But I want a computer that I can power off of a relatively small solar panel, and I want it now!
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
Microsoft has enough problems with PCs becoming so cheap that it costs $100 more at Walmart for a Windows OS rather then Linux. That cost differential is going to hurt them even worse on generic handhelds. Right now for $500 handhelds, that price can hide the M$ tax well enough. But a lot more people are on the lookout for cheap handhelds than cheap PCs. It's harder to convince people that it's ok to have expensive handhelds, since they are so much smaller than a PC and have such dinky screens and lousy keyboards. There's tons more competition sweating to keep prices low, since no single company controls either the CPU or the software. I don't see any way M$ can compete in the generic handheld market.
Infuriate left and right
As far as I can tell, this esimate assumes following:
1. WinCE will capture a large marketshare in a cell phone market.
This seems very unlikely, since virtually all big and medium (Nokia, Sony/Ericsson, Motorola, Samsung) cell phone manufacturers have chosen a Symbian instead of WinCE.
2. Sales of PDAs will rise very quickly.
According to the other estimate, sales of smartphone will outstip PDA sales in this year. As smartphones will become more advanced, PDAs won't be as attractive as they're today. While many companies will buy PDAs for workers, I doubt that sales will singificantly increase in a consumer market.
After all, the more devices you have the more diffucult it becomes to manage them (carrying around, recharging battery, syncing, etc..). Since many people already have a cell phone, it's more logical for them to buy a smartphone instead of PDA.
In the last year about 400 million of cell phones and 12 million of PDAs were sold. Now if we assume that in 2008 sales of cell phones will rise to 600 million and WinCE captures 5% marketshare (which is a lot since many of those 600 million phones will be very simple and won't need an advanced OS) and PDA sales will triple, we will have about 66 million WinCE devices sold in 2008 (assuming 100% marketshare in the PDAs).
Article estimates that there will be 200-220 million WinCE devices sold in 2008...
The answer is that the "Post-PCs" will be replaced by a brand-name snack cake. This will happen for two simple reasons: 1. WindowsCE devices are easy to throw. 2. While it would be easy to throw a twinkie, they are usually eaten instead.
A pricey Microsoft-certified pile of smashed up plastic, glass and solder, or a tasty treat in your tummy? You decide.
--- What?
The rumors of the PC's demise have been greatly exaggerated.
I've always thought this was an age related thing. Out of curiosity, how old are you/your colleagues?
For basis of comparison, I'm in my early 30's, play some computer games and so do about 1/2 of my colleagues/friends.
Remember, Palm Inc. owns all of Be's IP, so they could have a *really* cool handheld in a couple of years. Handhelds are rapidly hitting the performance point PCs were at when Be was the 'Next Big Thing'.
Seriously, power and signal are paramount.
If the design gets smaller than I can see or handle, then we're out. Thumboards are neat, but not an everyday solution. The subnotebook is still usable enough on its own, wonderful when married to a large display and full peripherals at home, and maintain the groundwork for serious ink and voice interfaces.
OK and pivot the display so I can have a tablet.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Here is why it won't work:
A PDA's screen is terrible for web browsing because of its size.
It is easier to use a full size keyboard to enter any significant amount of data.
If you can't charge it when required it is possible to lose data. (this happened to me once when I forgot the charger on vacation)
Its small size makes it easy to steal and if you don't have a pc you won't have a backup for your data.
A PDA is best used as an extension for your computer, it is not a replacement for your PC.
Looking for a job?
Want your resume written professionally?
DON'T USE TUNAREZ!!!
The main problem is the proprietary CLOSED nature of console games. The BEST longest lasting most played games, read made the MOST $$$'s are PLAYER supported, designed for MODS and player maps. Until the consoles figure a way around that, and I am sure they will, PC gaming is and will continue to be superior. The grand expirement is EQ adventures, and I predict a slow painful death for that game. Without a keyboard and extensive macro ability it is going to be painful at best. Make a console controller that can compete with a mouse+keyboard in a FPS and you might have something also. :)
As to needing new games with more imagnitive gameplay HERE HERE
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Every year, people (I mean the teaming masses wallowing in their computer ignorance) are getting slowly smarter about their computers. It is now something of joke, but the grandmother who spends her time sending e-mail and playing bridge is a good example. So basically, the basic users are getting smarter, and more demanding, about computers.
So my question is: why, oh why, would they suddenly decide to give up this machine that they can communicate with, do their taxes with, play Heart$ or whatever on, "surf" the internet with, etc. and trade it in on a bunch of over specialized little boxes with way less computing power? Doing so would be going against the trend of increasing knowledge and computer familiarity.
This is a dream by the manufacturers that have worked themselves into a corner because PC's have become a commodity. This is also Bill Gates' network refrigerator and talking house dream. Oddly enough, in these schemes, the PC just disappears. I don't see any trends going in this direction. The whole PDA thing took off because you can hook them up to your PC.
But I think this is a marketing argument and not even a consumer argument.
Congratulations! Now we are the Evil Empire
It's not age, really.
The only reason it appears to be age is how young video games are as a medium, and how they are generally presented.
People typically keep the same hobbies for thier lives that they pick up in high school -- so if you were athletic, and enjoyed reading in high school, chances are you'll be doing related activities like that for the rest of your life. If you did marathon gaming sessions as a youngster, chances are you'll tend to enjoy those as you get older as well.
The only reason we aren't seeing 50+ year old gamers, is that people who are 50 now were only about 25 when video games started to really come around. So they wouldn't have been playing them during thier formative years, and they're not playing them now.
Typically the oldest gamers that you find these days are in thier low - mid 40s (i.e. around 15 or so in the late 70s, early 80s), and would have a strong computer background (as gaming in the early 80s outside the arcades was much better on the 8-bit PCs, and anyone using those as a teen is probably still using computers in some capacity today).
I don't know anyone who can "write" @ like 100WPM or use those flimsy keyboards at those speeds. Plus what about people who like linux servers. You think some PPC will be able to keep booted using ALOT of CPU for years and years. Plus the price of disk space for them is too pricy. You pay the same for like 10gb HDD's (mini) as you almost do for 110. Where am I supposed to keep my porn. Just my little $0.02
Solosoft.org - Your Online Resource to Nothing
What is the killer app that will make handhelds skyrocket?
This in turn will also determine the handheld OS/platform leader.
After all, isn't this how IBM shutout Apple, with Lotus 123?
John
Isn't there a major difference between devices that have web/PIM/music/movies/games capabilities? I'm sure in the future there will be Windows CE devices that can do more things than current top of the line PC's, but won't PC's of that time do more things themselves? I think this is just another attempt for MS to garner more interest towards their own devices while acknowledging that the current PC architectures will become obsolete. Isn't it strange that PC's can either run various OS's. Since Windows CE devices must meet MS specs and pay a certain percentage, MS has better control on how PCs should be built.
.smell my feet.
Why would CE devices outselling desktops constitute a 'Post PC' era? They have different uses. If popularity is the only measure, then I could argue that we're already in a Post PC Era because calculator sales dwarf those of PCs.
Really, how many post on slashdot are done with a CE device?
Yep, everyone can run around with their wifi cards on a pda or their 3g cell phones, and you can all have 7 days of batter power, but you'll still be behind pc. Right now you can have 1gb ethernet with low pings ~1 or 2 ms, and in some cases 10gb ethernet. The fastest wifi is like 50mb/s and extended in some cases to about 80mb/s and lets' not even compare pings. Until wireless advances significantly, a pc will always have the advantage. Now, if that pc is atx/itx or some new smaller form factor is debatable.
This story conflicts with this story by the same research company:
http://www.etforecasts.com/pr/pr0402.htm
In 2001 the worldwide number of PCs-in-use topped 600M units. In the next six years this number will nearly double to over 1.15B PCs-in-use by year-end 2007-a compound annual growth of 11.4%.
Trouble with market research firms is that they usually tend to tell the client what they want to hear.
Enjoy,
It's just the normal noises in here.
Phone/PDA combinations aren't likely to overcome desktops because Average Joe (read "people who aren't tech geeks like us") can't afford them, with the exception of the Danger Hiptop/T-Mobile Sidekick, and even with that useless quarter-VGA screen, they do not want something that cumbersome. Then again, they also don't want something very small, as many people have had a hard time holding recent cell phones. Form factor is a critical issue here, and until we have PDAs that can switch to a horizontal display, people will still need something to type their papers and book reports on.
I mean, let's face it: Average Joe might use a pirated copy of Word but certainly not Latek. For this, he needs a desktop.
And who can use such a tiny screen to view cheesy free porn?
Honestly I think the PCs time came and went. The truth is that they are starting to get to powerful and large for 21st centrory use. Except for having 1 expensive Computer with software on it. Imbed the software into the hardware and make each hardware designed for a serton task. Game Consoles for Vidio Games. Word Processors for writting papers and stuff. Server Appliances for sharing content. Etc. This would be a much better world then one of a PC.
First there is less of a software legacy lock. Device A uses Linux Device B uses Windows CE, Device C use PalmOS. Now you can run each job on its own cheap device without rebooting it to a different OS. So if Company B makes a better software there it is harder for the other OS makers to push him out of buisness because people would see the device more as a tool.
Second Having the right tool for the right job. The PC is a Swiss Army knife type tool. It can do most anything but there are seporate tools that if you have them are easier. So the Keyboard and mouse interface may be good for some applications there are other types of interfaces (touch screen, calculator keyboards, Game Controolers) that are better designed for their jobs.
Third price, OSS is great and all but sometimes it is a lot less hassle to go to the store and buy a program and install it from CD. For more people they dont fully use the all of the PC just an application or 2 with comerical software costing $100 why not get a couple devices at $150 then 2 Applications for $100 and a PC for $500.
Forth Portability. Laptop are still comberson I cant fit them in my shirt pocket. I need to carry around a bag where ever I want my laptop to be.
Fifth Speed. Hardware designed for the software helps reduce bottle necks in design. Some applications need more memory then processor and others the other way around. Although they may not do some things as quick as a PC but at least they wont run on a screaching halt like on a PC.
Although I beleave the PC is on its way out I do see some things that will keep the PC for a Decade or 2.
Free Software. for 2k you can get all the free software you want for the next 6years. That is a good deal!
New Techology. It brand spanking new. Why wait 1 year in RD when you can download it now and try it.
Environment. Throwing out 10 PDAs compared to 1 PC.
Tinkerers. If you want to tinker with this stuff PDA can be fun but a PC is better.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Laptops are like camper trailers. Bulky and tedious to carry around, but in a pinch they serve quite well as a below average house
If the gap between desktop and laptop technology continues to decrease (and I don't see it as that big an "if") why would you prefer a desktop over a laptop? Not arguing here - genuinely curious.
If I could get a camper trailer to store nearly as much as my house, and if it was small enough to take anywhere, well... then I would have a TARDIS and I would prefer to own one of those than to own a house.
God is real unless declared integer
A man once asked ~1985 of Mr. Big Cream, and I quote
"If your d!ck gets bigger, wouldn't your hands get bigger too!?"
(Rodney Dangerfield HBO special)
You have to hand it to MS - they have been *very* good at applying pressure to hardware vendors to get them to support CE, in most cases to the exclusion of anythign else. (Take a look at tiqit.com, the people who used to have the tiny little x86 borads for an example where they're about 75% don with the conversion - CE is clearly the emphasis, although they're not yet getting all the MS marketing dollars they can by removing any reference to competing OSes as some others have. Intrynsic is another example of a vendor in the process of switching to CE.)
Seriously, this is a *real* problem - right now, I'm looking for a very tiny, low-power embedded board that can support either wired Ethernet or 802.11. (Any pointers greatly appreciated!) First, there are far fewer choices than there were a year ago - it's amazing how many hardware platforms have died in this space, many of them casualties of the embedded Linux movement (for instance, Lineo and Metroworks are no longer interested in selling hardware, and their products just died off, leaving a real void.)
I don't want to use CE for this device, but I may, if only because it's *far* easier to get CE support on the new highly capable hardware. No one wants to own Linux or NetBSD drivers and the like, so it's a quagmire - MS, on the other hand is throwing beaucoup dollars at making sure CE runs (and is supported) on everything that matters. As a result, it's getting hard to avoid making the decision to design CE into new embedded products. Yess, it's a stupidly designed environment, but there's no question it's already far better supported than Linux and BSD for quick time-to-market embedded systems development.
I don't like that, but it's reality. And I don't think I see any way for it to change real soon, either. They are quite simply, being very successful at buying this market. This is a real shame, as the ELCPS (Embedded Linux Consortium PLatform Specification) should breathe some life into things, but instead, it appears that the hardware vendors are leaving Linux behind so long as Microsoft is waving dollars at them.
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
I wasn't a jock in High School but I have always been into sports and my roomates in college were all athletes. Yet, besides drinking, Madden Football was our greatest pasttime. I also don't think there is any question that PC Gamers have driven the industry since the days of Doom.
And you call yourself a nerd? For shame!
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
Handhelds aside, WinCE market might develop also through desktop thin-client (think Citrix) terminal hardware, some of which run WinCE (Wyse for instance). Of course you can use linux for this kind of hardware aswell.
For your regular office worker with a spreadsheet, word processor, email and maybe some custom software that their company uses, something that hooks up to a terminal server and provides input, display and connectivity interfaces is enough. This kind of hardware will replace many company desktops and WinCE is well placed within this market.
I joined two users too late.
A PDA's screen is terrible for web browsing because of its size.
Unless it is a PDA with a good screen. E.g. netBook.
It is easier to use a full size keyboard to enter any significant amount of data.
Unless you have a PDA with a good keyboard. E.g. netBook.
If you can't charge it when required it is possible to lose data. (this happened to me once when I forgot the charger on vacation)
Unless you have a real PDA OS that isn't that silly. E.g. Symbian/EPOC. Ok, that's also on a netBook.
Its small size makes it easy to steal and if you don't have a pc you won't have a backup for your data.
Unless you back it up on a CF card or something. I guess my cell phone has the same potential problem, but I cannot back it up to a CF card. I can with my netBook, tho.
... and in the year 2000 we will have flying cars; erm, Wait.
Did anybody check this out? I'm betting that it was, once again, Microsoft. It's obviously marketing hype, because nobody in their right minds would prognosticate the complete inversion of the PC hardware market relative to the PDA market with any note of confidence. Moreover, predicting that WinCE, in particular, is going to dominate anything in that amount of time is being a bit hasty as well.
Where are the facts to support the thesis? I didn't see any.
PC sales have slowed because the PC has matured and the market has reached saturation. That is, everyone who wants a PC probably already has one. Also, it's foolish to believe the days of the PC are numbered. I don't know about you, but I prefer to use a full-size keyboard and 21" display vs. a few buttons and a 4" display. I also prefer my 4.1 setup with a serious subwoofer over some tinny, tiny speaker built-in to a portable device or headphones. Nothing to see here. Move on.
Biodiesel : domestic, renewable, clean, and in the fuel tank of my bone stock 2002 New Beetle TDI
sooner or later people are going to figure out they don't need a $1500 computer to check email, websites, and play solitair. It's going to suck for those of us who like general purpose hardware. We've been able to get cheap commodity hardware primarily because so many people are buying expensive general purpose PC's they have little use for. That makes the market bigger and helps keep prices low.
I'm hoping the commodity hardware market survives this though, since linux's future on the desktop will depend on cheap hardware with open standards. You'll still need a general purpose PC for video editing after all.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Suppose that project-on-smoke gets cheap to make.
Now suppose some cigarette company starts distributing these projectors...
I never understood the scene in Brazil where the guy is staring at his tiny monitor through a magnifying glass until now. People are obsessed with these things to the extent that they use them in permanently tethered mode even though they have a full sized monitor and keyboard sitting right next to the thing.
That part of the fad will fade I think, along with the eyesight of users. The main thing that will drive computing for the next few years will be PRICE. It's a dismal prospect for Microsoft and I'm sure these studies are designed to give them hope that people will switch from paying $2000 for a full sized PC whose cost of manufacture is $100 to paying $500 for a palmtop which contains $10 worth of parts. They are addicted to these outrageous profit margins and they have absolutely no plan for how to replace the cashflow that they generate.
They better get such a plan and soon however. These PDA/Notepad dreams will never come true in the way MS needs them to. A decent PDA in the near future will cost $50 or less, subsidized by cell phone service agreements if they have that function, and a notpad style PC will go for $300 and both devices will be considered "disposable" since in either case you drop them on concrete and they become useless and unfixable.
High (relative) profit margin items for the next few years will be ordinary notebooks, but people and companies on a budget will keep using what they have for as long as possible. Notebooks are the best compromise... readable displays and normal keyboards... single device for each user with no need to constantly "synch". I think even good notebooks will be available from every brand for under $1000 and the competitive price for these devices will flirt with $500. Read it and weep Microsoft.
It's almost ironic, as there is a large chunk of the nerd world (me included) holding the belief that video games are a path to stupidity, what with the endless sitting and staring at a screen when there's a big old interesting world out there. The irony comes when the same video game couch potatoes often snidely deride those who watch TV endlessly.
A vast majority of the true nerds (not 'hip' neo-nerds) I have ever known believe that one of the hallmarks of being so is the constant search for knowledge and education that goes well beyond computers. The term 'nerd' has really been bastardized in recent years from its original connotation of someone who is just plain intelligent and worldly (metaphorically), if a bit socially stunted. The term 'nerd,' as I believe it was originally intended, is actually the antithesis of a video game chronic.
In my opinion, the percentage is relatively small but vocal, as junkies attempt to convince everyone else that they're somehow smarter than TV addicts.
-
Inventor of the term 'pardon my French'.
Ok, you may be right. But isnt it just renaming and repackaging? My Mom hated her old "PC" when it was a beige box with cablechaos collecting dust under her desk.
Now shes got a cute lil Mini-ITX Box and a TFT and she wouldnt trade it in anytime soon (If only I could get her to use Linux but when I first installed it I was only familiar with Windows and now she wont climb the learning curve...*sigh*).
Probably a Mac or an Amiga were the right way to go after all. An enduser focused Computer in a neat little box. But since it all boils down to a definition of where the PC ends and the PDA starts (check this out for a cute, old borderliner) I dont really think this is a real topic of discussion but rather a marketing issue...
In light of this, don't you find it ironic that pocketlinux.com could not be resolved since around June, 2002.
A programmer is a machine for converting coffee into code.
I also feel that gaming will be responsible (in a major way) for taking CE to the masses. I wouldn't be surprised if there is currently more development going on for games than business applications.
BTW: I have been developing for CE since 1.0 and have been in the mobile computing industry for well over 5 years.
Japanese people will pay more for smaller devices, but in USA where "bigger is better", people expect smaller devices to cost less. Therefore, if WinCE costs more than a few dollars per unit, Linux based devices will be noticable less expensive, and thus more competitive.
I recall hearing something simmilar about 10 years ago. NetworkApliances. Little java type terminals that accessed everything from programs to documents via centeralized network server. Thin Clients. But it never happened. Its starting to catch on but it was supposed to be the way. alas its not. and i doubt it will be for a very logn time.
One reason is that you can do more with a desktop. You can change it around and keep it more up to date. Laptops also have smaller screens on the whole, and inferior keyboards, and "will do" pointing devices. Sure you can connect your own kb, mouse, monitor, etc, but by that time you've hung enough off of it that you lost the portability. I'm all for shrinking the desktop, but I don't see laptops taking over since they're designed to be portable, and for those who don't need that portability, they're not as good.
(and yes I do own a laptop. an HP ze4115 to be exact. Wonderful little machine, but it won't be replacing my Linux or Windows desktops any time soon).
Market long term average is 11% per year. If you are only getting 10% in 2 years, your fund stinks.
More likely are funds getting 20-40% growth the first year or two. Then, they get so much money that they have to put money in less attractive stocks to stay diversified. In the end, they get about market average and charge you a cool 2-3% for the privilage.
A much better option is to use an index fund. They have less turnover (less taxes), and are run by computer (no expensive human stock-pickers). The expenses on these funds run 0.02-0.05% -- i.e. almost nothing. If you are going to put your money in a fund, put it in the one with the least expenses, unless you really know something special. (Note: This is basically the advice from Motley Fool. I will start investing when I graduate, and have a house for my family squared away.)
Why can't I just buy a phone that makes phone calls?
A friend of mine has an Ericsson T68 which is just about ideal. It's small, and it offers bluetooth... so you can use a handsfree headset, or connect a PDA or laptop up to the internet.
Less is more. Fewer cables, smaller size, that's what people want. Not all-in-one devices that are useless at any one given task.
We see these articles all the time. However people are still buying PCs. In theory, i guess these devices may be as powerful, but imo, nothing smaller than a laptop can actually be used as a primary workstation. These non-pcs will have small screens, cramped keyboards, if any and poor pultimedia quality. Until this can be changed (never, imo), the PC will reign supreme.
When I re-did my mortgage a little while ago, all of the desktop machine monitors were displaying a WinCE logo in screensaver mode. I don't know if these were real PC's or some kind of network computer. I thought it strange, but being basicaly a Linux guy, I wasn't sure how strange; but I bet the liesencing fees for WinCE is a lot less than for WinXP.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
The study projects that Windows CE-based devices may outsell Windows-based PCs within 5 years.
Yeah, whatever
My Weblog
just because mobile devices might outsell PCs, does not make it the dawn of a post-PC era. you might as well say that were at the dawn of a post-car era, because more pairs of shoes are being sold than cars. these numbers dont suprise me. you have your cell phone, your PDA, your gameboy clone (gp32), and many more items that will require an operating system, vs you PC... just because youve had to pay for multiple copies of a embedded operating system, doesnt mean that you dont consider your PC more important and useful than all of them...
Mobile batteries suck and lag behind mobile technology. Those numbers wont be possible unless we come up with some novel technology for providing power to those little post-pc (sic) devices
I tried to get some devt. tools for CE for my IDE of choice - Borland Delphi.
Here's the answer I got:
Borland isn't prioritizing CE, because Microsoft sees it as a product on the way out. They are developing other things that will take its place.
So why not try Kylix and use Linux on the embedded device?
Something does NOT make sense here.
If you got a $100 bill, put your hands up...
The study projects that Windows CE-based devices may outsell Windows-based PCs within 5 years.
:-)
Is this study heavily MS-sponsored or what ?
MS has tried to push CE for years now with limited success and I don't know if many people still want to use it to develop after it's history.
I won't buy a phone if I know there's CE behind it, and there's an alternative available
CE-devices may outsell Windows-based PCs ?
This means to me that people will buy Linux-pc's from now on..
Learn about pinball machines on www.flippers.be
I can't make any claims about doing CE development for the last five years- I've been doing development on CE only for the last two, and didn't start using it until WinCE 3.0.
However, for me, it has been quite stable- more so than Win98 and WinXP. Perhaps your code is a bit... ugly. All the same, WinCE should be able to deal with it. But for me, in the two years of use and development, I've had next to no real crashes. I use it as a tool quite often, although for the time being, I've switched to embedded Linux for the same development and use. That said, there isn't anything which I can do on my Zaurus that I couldn't also do on my iPAQ and Jornada 720. On the other hand, there was plenty that I could do on my WinCE PDAs, but not on the Zaurus, unfortunately. But I had my reasons for switching.
I think there is tons more development going on WinCE in the area of business apps. Take a look at PocketPC and other uses of WinCE. Yes, there are tons of games, but the primary purpose of a PDA isn't gaming, and who develops what reflects this.
Gaming would be great for WinCE, but not until there are some real gaming APIs, I don't see it taking over in that area. The Dreamcast ran WinCE- surely there was some game API there, and there is GAPI on PocketPC. But what kind of contenders to OpenGL or DirectX can any developer get now? On the other hand, business (very liberally used) apps have most or all of the API support they need already in place.
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
Dunno about palm users, but I haven't played a computer game in months. I've got better things to do. OK, so I'm a curmudgeon (and I like it like that :-) ) but most people I know don't give a flying fart about games.
this guy _is_ crazy
posix: from the looks of Enlightenment he's on LSD
LSD is nothing compared to what this guy's on..
-- Seen on #Unix
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...