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The Dawn of the Post-PC era?

Posted by michael on from the premature-speculation dept.

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.

5 of 260 comments (clear)

  1. Handheld Crashing rates? by Flamesplash · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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
  2. Numbers Misleading? by ErikRed1488 · · Score: 5, Interesting
    My company has purchased about 150 PCs in the last year. We will not be buying any new desktop machines for the next three years. We do however plan to outfit most of the staff with Pocket PC based devices during that three year period. I'd guess that in the next five year period we'll purchase approximately about 125 new PCs. During that same period we'll probably purchase about 250 Pocket PC based PDAs. Mainly this is due to them not being useful as long. It has nothing to do with our plans to switch anyone from a PC to a PDA. Now, if you also count all the Smartphones that may be running a version of CE, our numbers could go from 250 to 500 easily in that same 5 year period. So, IMHO, PCs are going nowhere.

    --
    I was not touched there by an angel.
  3. The beige box by I_redwolf · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  4. Re:Happened 7 years ago by SN74S181 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I still have a copy of that Corel Office for Java beta that they came out with. I remember how badly it ran back when it came out, but about a year ago I brought it up on modern equipment. It really wasn't that bad. It was clearly seven years too early to go anywhere.

  5. This conflicts with previous report. by NullProg · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.