PC Era Forecasted To End In 18 Months

dcblogs writes "In a historic shift, shipments of smartphones, tablets and other app-enabled devices will overtake PC shipments in the next 18 months, an event that may signify the end of the PC-centric era, market research firm IDC said. IDC said worldwide shipments this year of app-enabled devices, which include smartphones and media tablets such as the iPad, will reach 284 million. In 2011, makers will ship 377 million of these devices, and in 2012, the number will reach 462 million shipments, exceeding PC shipments. In 2012, there will be 448 million PC shipments. One shipment equals one device. PC sales will continue to climb, but will no longer rule."

Comments

Oh happy day

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

This will probably mean the end of Microsoft as well.
Likely the beginning of the Year of Linux on the desktop as well.

Re:Oh happy day

[RabbitWho]

Right.. I feel like complaining about the fact that smart phones and ipads etc. ARE personal computers.. but then someone will punch me in the face.

Re:Oh happy day

[Anthony Mouse]

Don't get your hopes up. They're talking about shipments, not installed base.

People pretty much stopped buying new PCs once they had a Core 2 Duo or faster. It isn't that no one is using PCs anymore, it's that no one is buying a new one because the old one is still plenty fast.

Incidentally, you can expect the same thing to happen in phones in a couple of years. Once you have a phone which is fast enough to play video and has a battery that lasts all day, the biggest improvements are going to come as software update and you won't care about the hardware any more than you currently care whether you have a 2.6GHz CPU vs. a 3GHz CPU -- both are fast enough to do whatever so nobody cares anymore.

Re:Oh happy day

[treeves]

I suppose that when they say "The era of X is over" they mean the era when X *is dominant* is over. They're not saying X will be no more. Yes, we still have radio, but it is no longer our primary means of receiving entertainment and news. (and hasn't been for quite a while). ...Or they're just finding a way to spin some numbers to make it dramatic.

Re:Oh happy day

[Sancho]

Once you have a phone which is fast enough to play video and has a battery that lasts all day, the biggest improvements are going to come as software update and you won't care about the hardware any more than you currently care whether you have a 2.6GHz CPU vs. a 3GHz CPU -- both are fast enough to do whatever so nobody cares anymore.

Except that wireless providers are historically terrible at providing software updates. Apple bucked this trend a bit, and some Android phones have gotten one or two updates. Carriers are still the gatekeepers for the vast majority of phones, though. They want to sell new hardware, not provide new software.

Re:Oh happy day

[ksandom]

I think you're under estimating how important fashion is to a large portion of the population. While us nerds may be lacking the sheep chromosone to some extent, it's alive and kicking in most people.

Re:Oh happy day

[w0mprat]

Once you have a phone which is fast enough to play video and has a battery that lasts all day, the biggest improvements are going to come as software update and you won't care about the hardware any more than you currently care whether you have a 2.6GHz CPU vs. a 3GHz CPU -- both are fast enough to do whatever so nobody cares anymore.

Except that wireless providers are historically terrible at providing software updates. Apple bucked this trend a bit, and some Android phones have gotten one or two updates. Carriers are still the gatekeepers for the vast majority of phones, though. They want to sell new hardware, not provide new software.

All hope is not lost. If you have an Android phone it's only a matter of time before you root your handset go for a aftermarket ROM - probably when your warranty runs out in 12 months. Ironically the community builds of Android are often highly stable and usable sometimes less buggy than carrier software, and you get the latest and greatest features and performance. I have a HTC Magic running Android 2.2, this is hardware that was abandonded by HTC in late 2009 with no further than version 1.6, and it runs sweetly.

You tend to get a stable release every month, or you could update to nightly builds if you like self-torture. That's per ROM, there's a huge range of aftermarket OS builds. Admittedly it's a minefield, and it's not for the novice tech user, but anyone who's installed Windows or changed a hard drive is probably the right technical level.

Point is, where the carriers let Android users down, the OSS community has done a fucking awesome job of keeping old handsets upgraded.

I dunno, man

[Pojut]

Even if smartphones and such sell more than their larger counterparts, I still don't see it happening that quickly. There's still a lot to be said of the experience of using a "PC" rather than an "app device", regardless of the equal or disparate capabilities between them.

An example is writing...I'm not going to write on a bluetooh-keyboard-connected iPad for the same reason I wouldn't write on a netbook or a laptop; I need to feel centered, to feel like "OK body and mind, we're sitting down, and we're writing." I don't see being able to duplicate that feeling with an "app" device.

Re:I dunno, man

[ColdWetDog]

Yeah, but Pojut is doing it wrong. He's writing. He's not consuming. Content creation by anyone other that the Media (big M) is so last century and more to the point

- potential terrorist activity -

Grab those iPads, comrades!

Re:I dunno, man

[Locke2005]

Then, if you could just extend it with more memory, a hard drive, and a faster CPU, it would be almost as useful as a PC!

Re:I dunno, man

[CornflakeJustice]

That's actually pretty reasonable. App devices are designed for function, but they tend to be oriented towards quick bursts of something. EX: iOS games are largely built to be a quick serving here, a quick serving there. But sitting at a desk to work just 'feels' more like you're doing something to be productive. I love my fancy app infested phone, if I have a moment of brilliance and self actualization I can make a quick note on it, but if I want to really expound on that idea a workspace is better suited towards actual working.

Re:I dunno, man

[HermMunster]

Most of the computers I have run Linux, even those that are entitled to a license of WinXP and Vista. My phone system runs Linux. It runs Trixbox and integrates with Google Voice and Sipgate. My entertainment system runs Linux attached to a 47" LCD TV. On it I have Ubuntu and XBMC installed. My Pogoplug V2 runs Linux. I use it as my primary UPNP server (even my XBMC sees it as a UPNP device while XBMC itself also operates as a UPNP device), as well as sharing files on the internet . Both my XBOX360 and my PS3 connect to the Pogoplug. My phone runs Android which is Linux. My GPS runs Linux. My servers in the back all run Linux. My diagnostic workstations run Linux and are used to clean viruses, test hardware, back up and restore data.

Hype

[recoiledsnake]

First, the report talks about devices sold, not the installed base, in which PCs will have a very big lead for the foreseeable future. Phones have long sold better than PCs. Also, do you know anyone that just uses smartphones and tablets but never PCs or laptops? Didn't think so.

Re:Hype

[GiveBenADollar]

I for one have three bikes at home and only two cars, does that mean that the era of the car is over at my house? I really tire of these slanted news articles that crumble with the slightest application of common sense.

Re:Hype

[Sancho]

Also, do you know anyone that just uses smartphones and tablets but never PCs or laptops? Didn't think so.

I come damned close, though, in my personal life. At work, I have to use a keyboard to get anything done (though conceivably, I could use an iPad connected to a bluetooth keyboard.) Most of my computer use at home is fairly light and based on consuming content, and as such, an iPad is perfect except for two little problems:

1) The iPad currently requires the use of a computer at least once (to activate) and any time you want to back it up. I think this will eventually be addressed, but it hasn't been high on Apple's priority list.

2) Flash (which is becoming less and less of a problem.)

My Android phone has neither of these problems, and in fact the only time it connects to a PC is to charge. It has practically replaced my laptop for day-to-day, out-of-the-house/office usage.

Re:Hype

[Hijacked Public]

Slashdot makes this same mistake every single time a story like this goes on the front page. Every time.

The report is from a marketing firm. Their audience is other marketing types who make reports to business types. That lot is concerned about growth because growth is where they can make money. Selling things in markets that are growing faster than competition can enter, which means profit margins can stay comfortably high.

Once growth falls off and capacity catches up, things get competitive. Margins dwindle and the kinds of companies that pay people to read marketing reports can no longer survive.

Re:Hype

[interval1066]

Everybody knows you never go full retard.

Re:Hype

[rezalas]

Not to mention PC just means Personal Computer, which is what phones are becoming. I wouldn't say that the PC will ever die, but new hardware trends will emerge over time and old technologies will be overtaken by newer more efficient ones. The Modern Desktop (what they call a PC) is a far cry from what it once was in the beginning and is hardly recognisable in some forms. The truth is that we're moving closer to having one set of portable PCs (smart phones) and a non-portable home-based central network (the Desktop) that controls all of your media. This might be the modern desktop, a new derivative, or it might be the xbox360/PS3 two more generations down the road. But to say that the 'PC' is dead or it's era is coming to an end is short sighted at best.

Re:Hype

[shadowfaxcrx]

Thank you.

Of course non-PC devices are selling faster than PC's right now. Almost everyone already has a PC, so there isn't a large group going out in the same time period to buy one. The same can't be said about tablets and smartphones.

Re:Hype

[smi.james.th]

Agreed. The other thing to consider here is that while someone might buy a new cellphone every year or two, or possibly more frequently if you're in the habit of breaking or losing it, a PC tends to be a bigger investment, possibly lasting up to 5 years, so naturally the number of units shipped per year would be lower.

Re:Hype

[interkin3tic]

I really tire of these slanted news articles that crumble with the slightest application of common sense.

At least all the yammering about "the cloud" seems to have decreased. I thought they'd never shut up about how computers were going to disappear completely. And it's been a while since I heard anyone proclaim that games were completely dead and downloadable content on the wii was going to be the only thing you'd be able to buy in a month.

Re:Hype

[Locke2005]

The car era will never be over because it's really hard to make out in the back of a bicycle. Likewise, the PC era will never be over because it's really hard to fap to a video on a 4 inch screen.

Re:Hype

[Lumpy]

My last phone cost $590.00

My last laptop was $750.00
My last PC , Quad Core i5 with 8 gig ram... was $699.99

PC is a bigger investment? It's less than 20% more than the freaking phone if you buy the phone at the cheapest rate, It's 1/2 the price of the phone if you are dumb and subsidize it through the cellphone carrier. iPhone though AT&T is $299+$1500.00 over the next 2 years.

Re:Hype

[smi.james.th]

Ok, if you want to play that game...

My current phone cost me the equivalent of about $120.

My current computer on the other hand, when I bought it anyway, cost something closer to $400 or $500 IIRC, and it's lasted about 5 years so far. I've been through about three phones in the same amount of time.

Granted, they've not been iPhones or Blackberries, but they're running Symbian so technically they do count as smartphones. My point stands, though, I go through phones much faster than PCs, so just to account for me over the last 5 years, manufacturers have had to ship 0.667 units of phones annually but only 0.2 units of PCs. I still use my PC more though.

Re:Hype

[EdZ]

Although, toilet paper is probably more ubiquitous than PCs.

And this is surprising how? Everyone knows that populated PCBs really chafe, even with SMT components only.

Re:Hype

[node 3]

I don't understand. They make their old hardware "obsolete" by rapidly advancing the state of the art, and this is a bad thing? The alternative would be to keep the iPhone 4 roughly similar to the original iPhone, which makes absolutely zero sense.

Re:Hype

[node 3]

Yes, because your garage is indicative of everyone's. Also, children have bikes and no cars.

And unlike your example, this is a changing tend and not just a snapshot of a mostly static relationship. The smart phone and tablet are rising and seems poised to eclipse the PC. This isn't terribly surprising to most people, but I fully expect Slashdot to completely miss the significance of this. Even once the PC is dethroned, the stereotypical slashdotter will still live and die by theirs.

It's also important to note that this doesn't mean that the PC is dying. PCs will be around for quite some time. Just that it's being supplanted as the most numerous general computing appliance.

Re:Hype

[Xtifr]

Almost everyone already has a PC, so there isn't a large group going out in the same time period to buy one.

And for people who live alone in their parent's garage, that's all that needs to be said, but for families (which are actually a fairly large segment of the population, outside of geekdom), there's another factor, which is that while before, they may have needed several PCs, now they may be able to get by with one PC and several tablets and/or smartphones. So there may well be a decrease in PC use, even if it won't affect anyone on slashdot.

Another factor is that after the public reaction to Vista, MS was basically forced to make Win7 not be a slow, bloaty mess (relatively speaking), so there's not as much incentive to replace your older machines; people can upgrade, and many probably have. My prediction (you read it here first) is that MS is going to be persuaded by the hardware makers to make the next version of Win noticably bigger and bloatier, though probably not by as much as Vista was.

Re:Hype

[hazydave]

PCs are a commodity market. You generally get what you pay for. The average PC sold in the USA last year cost just over $500, and the profit margins were razor thin.

Smart phones have artificially high prices. They are kept high, particularly in the USA, Canada, and other countries in which phones are subsidized by telecom companies (and these artificial prices affect the international price as well). They do this to maintain the illusion that a subsidized phone is a stellar deal, which in fact, not so much.

In a competitive market, the high end smart phones would run around $300, unbundled/unlocked, give or take. Even comparing that to the very high profit margins Apple's seeing shows this clearly. The iPod vs. iPhone is the perfect comparison. If you add a mic ($1.00), a camera or two ($2-$3), and a cellular modem subsystem (radio chip, PA, switches, printed antenna... $20-$30), you get a smart phone. You can buy an iPod Touch with 8GB at Amazon for $215. Even with markup, the extra components that make it an iPhone don't get you anywhere near the $600 or so they sell for unbundled (well, the replacement price, since Apple doesn't actually sell unbundled in the USA, though they do elsewhere).

And even this is comparing, well, Apples to non-Apples. Apple hardware, all of it, is overpriced. An Archos 32, running Android, with that same 8GB runs $145 at Amazon. Not as nice as the iPod, but it does the same jobs.

This is already coming true, even with fairly weak competition. Two of the small national wireless companies, MetroPCS and Cricket Wireless, have left the subsidized phone + contract model -- you buy the phone outright, you pay by month as long as you feel like it. MetroPCS has two Android models, one at $230, one at $300... the later with OLED screen and both 3G and LTE (I won't say "4G") network interfaces (apparently their LTE service sucks, but they did roll it out before Verizon). If you could buy these as a commodity, rather than locked into any given carrier, the prices would drop still more.

I mean, really, think about it. A smartphone or ARM-based tablet has only some of the same components as a PC, but nearly every one costs less: cheaper display, cheaper battery, cheaper CPU (and it's an SOC, so no need for a "North Bridge" or other system chips), same Wifi, fewer ports, less RAM, less mass storage, no keyboard, etc. The only reason people think these things are expensive is because there's little direct competition. But things like Android are starting to change that... no more proprietary lock-in.

Apple should be an indicator, too. The average laptop, not including netbooks, sold in the USA in 2009 cost about $550. Apple's cheapest laptop starts at $1000... and they're selling the same thing. Macs ARE PC Clones. So figure, for any price Apple puts on an item, you should figure if that class of item were sold in a PC-like commodity market, the average price would be about half. This also tracks with plain old MP3 players, and it's starting to look like smart phones are heading there. Tablets, not yet, but no one's had a successful ARM-based tablet yet except Apple and Samsung... and Samsung's not fighting the high markups yet. No point yet, but in a few years, it'll be the PC Wars all over again.

Re:Hype

[AshtangiMan]

I don't think Apple is any different than any other computer hardware or software maker. Autodesk is probably one of the worst on the software side, and the WinTel side of the PC world is pretty good at planned obsolescence as well. In fact I don't think I've ever owned a computer that after 3 years would run the latest software without dragging like a donkey. And the hardware upgrades to get to that point almost always seemed to run just a little slower with all of the latest and "greatest" software than the previous iteration. At my office I am pushing for a no software upgrade policy, as there is little benefit to stay on that train (here is where the security update side comes in and always at some point forces an upgrade).

Re:Hype

[HermMunster]

I think in Apple's case the newer iPods were opened to discover that much of the iPhone internals were there.

Developer soup

[iONiUM]

While I'm all for new technology, we're also entering an era I like to call developer soup. Maybe I just coined that. In any case, there's no good way to target all the platforms anymore. You might argue HTML5, but really only Chrome is useful for that (right now), and many do not run Chrome. Many in fact, still use IE6/7/8 at corps.

It kind of stinks, because before you could make an app for one platform and hit a lot of targets, but not anymore.. Android, iOS, BBOS, Windows, Linux, Mac, MeeGo, the diversity is difficult, at best, if you want an all encompassing app. Ah well, I guess HTML4 for now, HTML5 in 18 months.

DOORKNOB ERA FORECASTED TO END IN 24 MONTHS

[dyingtolive]

Read all about it in this arbitrarily nonsensical review guaranteed to increase page clicks here!

Re:DOORKNOB ERA FORECASTED TO END IN 24 MONTHS

[countSudoku()]

Most awesome! May I also subscribe, multiple times, to your newsletter?

I look forward to orphaning all the perfectly good hardware I own in favor of a paperless, flying-car world of handheld delights and not very good copy or pasting or printing... what's scanning? Well, that's something we used to do with a thing called a USB serial port that our plamtop vendors forgot to equip us with. Now we "scan" by taking a picture of the page you want copied, then upload it thru email to your facetwit account, then convert it into a textless PDF, and we're done... almost. Now, download it again on a real computer and print via an actual USB port connected to a printer(not over wireless where we lose many features), and we're done. Hooray, we are teh suck!

Now, if you'll excuse me I'm off to purchase every doorknob at OSH...

Where the Work Is Being Done

[Sonny Yatsen]

Until smartphones and tablets displace the PC in being the platform where most of the work is done, I don't consider the PC Era to be over.

Re:Where the Work Is Being Done

[johnlcallaway]

Please mod up!!! If I need a full size monitor and keyboard in order to work 8 hours, I'd rather have a 'desktop' to begin with. My setup has two monitors, and a REAL keyboard and mouse, not the toy ones on most laptops, and I can't even begin to imagine the carpel tunnel and thumb pain that would skyrocket if iPads and such became work devices for people who type and use a mouse all day long, like developers and admins.

The era of the PC can't be over anyway, the mainframe era hasn't ended yet.....

Re:Where the Work Is Being Done

[DigiShaman]

Well actually, the smartphone will be the PC. That is to say, you could create a docking station connected to keyboard, mouse, and video. Just plug in your phone and go. Should the phone ring, you speak with bluetooth headset or hands free. Now expand that to include a future wireless keyboard, mouse, and video connection. Think about that for a moment... The phone is always with you. You sit down in the plane, office desk, or restaurant and are presented with the option to wirelessly pair with the peripherals. Now add in a bonus to have all your stuff backed up in the "cloud" in the event you lose your phone. Upgrades could be simple too. Swap out flash media or restore over the air.

With faster and smaller technologies, all but the most powerful of workstation PCs will be shoved out of the home market. For the corporate world, desktop PCs could be replaced with smartphones for traveling salesman.

Re:Where the Work Is Being Done

[Nemyst]

And without your dock close at hand, you're stuck on a tiny screen with no physical keyboard. I'm sorry but the convenience of a hardware, full-sized keyboard and proper applications (not apps) should far outweigh the hip factor in corporate environments.

Linux

[MrEricSir]

So can we declare 2012 the "Year of the Linux Smartphone"?

I highly doubt this

[Stregano]

Tell that to the 10mil+ subscribers of WoW. With the new expansion getting released, WoW players are going nowhere. Tell the pro Starcraft players that as well. The average consumer doesn't use their pc much anyway, and most of that can be handled through their ps3 or phone now, so they might stop using it alot less.

What about college students? So, how are they going to type up their exams now. On a smartphone? I think it would be absolutely horrid to write a thesus using a phone. Ouch.

18-months? Really?

Now, I consider myself an avid pc gamer, and I have no plans to move away from that anytime soon, plus the 6 cores are starting to roll out in larger numbers. 3-D technology is getting implemented more and more into PC's (I believe it is NVidia who is doing a bunch of stuff with it).

The thing is that PC's can do so much more than a smartphone, and PC's are upgradable (not just software, but hardware) and it won't void your warranty (well I guess if you buy a PC from Dell or something it might since I don't know the rules with pre-made machines). The point is that as pc's evolve, you can easily evolve and adapt with the times by upgrading your PC. To do this with a smartphone means that you need to buy a new phone. Not all that smart if you ask me

Re:I highly doubt this

[Anonymous Coward]

> What about college students? So, how are they going to type up their exams now. On a smartphone?

I think you're missing the point here. The smart phone will *become* their PC. For typing up papers, yes, they'll have a wireless bluetooth keyboard and monitor. The smart phone stays in your pocket, and when you need those peripherals, you'll just sit down next to them. The computing device itself will be mobile, always with you.

And mobile devices are getting increasingly powerful, and will soon be able to run advanced 3D games. The point is, people don't want to be tied down to one physical location any more, and that's what's going to change.

Having said that, I agree that it won't be over in 18 months. I think for at least 5 more years, PCs will be a big market force. But their era *will* come to an end, just like so many before it.

Computerworld forecasted to grow brain: never

[billcopc]

This is such an idiotic statement. There are already far more cell phones sold, smart or not, per year than PCs, and this has been true for nearly a decade. These phones are being replaced with "app-enabled devices" because it's getting nearly impossible to get a plain old phone - they just don't make them anymore. Even the $0 freebie has some sort of smartphone-like functionality. Hell, my old MotoRazr from 2004 had apps! Shiit Java apps, but still...

The day you can sit down at an "app-enabled device" and professionally write software, code a business-class web site, edit video, design a mechanical blueprint, and play WoW, well that might be the end of the PC era. For now, and the next 10 years at least, we just have a lot of fussy gadgets.

Re:Computerworld forecasted to grow brain: never

[Luckyo]

The "they don't make them anymore" feature phones still outsell smartphones by a very large margin. We're looking at about 4-5 times at the moment.

But even if you count any "I can install a game on it" phone as a "smartphone" (you could do that in early 1990s), they still make a lot of mobile phones that don't even have a screen, much less a capability to install anything on it.

Hyperbole

[joeflies]

"an event that may signify the end of the PC-centric era"

I think they overlook a few of factors:

1) smart phones are undergoing a upgrade/replacement phase that isn't seen in the pc world. Outside of the gaming community, many people are fine with the core 2 duo they bought 3 years ago, but in the same period of time they would have replaced a smart phone at least once.

2) many people have more than one smart phone - I have a work phone and a home phone, yet I only have one pc

3) many people are smart phone buyers but not pc buyers. For instance, a family may have 1 home computer and 4 phones (one for each parent, one for each kid)

End of the PC-specific era? Better get some more statistics than just shipments.

Awesome

[Hatta]

I'm sick of being politically correct.

Consuming vs. Creating

[Toe, The]

More broadly: anything creative is better done on a computer than a tablet.

A tablet (etc.) is for consumption of content. They rock for accessibility and convenience: just what you need when you are passively consuming content, such as reading or watching. Even gaming counts, as you are not putting anything in to the device: just getting entertainment out of it.

But if you are trying to create something (prose, music, code, graphics, databases, and so on and so on), then a full-fledged computer is vastly superior.

Maybe this will change someday, as the interfaces for devices improve and the apps develop. But in the short-term, I defy someone to create billboard-quality graphics, commercial-grade websites, or a publication-level novel on a tablet. I suppose it can be done, but it would be a heck of a lot easier with a full computer.

Television example

[droidsURlooking4]

Considering buying a new HDTV right now. Many are 'Internet Ready" which means it runs "apps". For a smartphone I suppose "apps" make sense but when I can just a good monitor and put a small Eee pc behind it with hdmi, gigabit ethernet, basically the whole Internet and any "app" I want, those Internet Ready devices fall flat. Why would I limit myself to today's hyped snapshot of the Internet experience? I'll keep them in mind for my fridge though.

No kidding

[Sycraft-fu]

Doesn't surprise me that there will be more smartphones. After all, phones are heading the way of all phones being smart phones and we are also heading the way of everyone having a personal phone. Wonderful, however that doesn't mean computers are going away. Thus far I've seen no indication that these devices are going to replace computers for work. Phones particularly but the iPad as well are devices well designed for consumption, not production. That's fine for play, not for work. I'm not just talking development, I mean simple things like say e-mail or a spread sheet. I've seen people do e-mail on an iPad, works fine but is much MUCH slower than on a computer.

I'm sure they'll be plenty of these other devices, but that doesn't mean computers are going anywhere.

Typical usage habits don't suggest replacement

[Greguar]

I don't believe that the majority of these shipped app device units are being used in a true computing capacity. In my day to day exposure, smart phones in particular don't tend to be used for much beyond the capabilities of earlier cell phones.

Especially among the younger crowd, who now seem to think that owning an iPhone 4 is the new minimum requirement for acceptance by their peers, the typical use seems to mostly comprise texting and music playback, with the occasional use of the camera for taking pictures of their friends while drunk. Facebook has definitely made significant inroads, but not too many people are using advanced features of Facebook or using more complex web applications from their smartphones. Some games are present, which are definitely more impressive than what previously existed as games on cell phones, but which mostly fill the same role: idle time wasters when on the go.

In my office environment, everyone has a smart phone. No one uses one as a primary email device, a primary web browsing device or a general office productivity device. The dominant use is scheduling, which requires syncronization with their computer-based scheduling, and email & web browsing while not in the office.

iPads have made some inroads as a computer replacement, with a few people using them as laptop-replacements for meeting notetaking and presentations, but still they're not being used as a primary productivity device.

I see these mobile devices, currently, as a supplement to personal computers which can be omni-present. Because they fit in a pocket and combine functionality with a required gadget (cell phones), more people are web browsing on the go or performing some tasks that previously may have required access to a computer. They still have syncing relationships to computers that are critical to many of their functions, and most functions still work better from a real computer. I doubt that any time soon you will see someone replacing their work PC with a smart phone, and the consumers that might replace a home PC with one probably didn't use that home PC very much.

Busy day

[QuaveringGrape]

The end of the PC and KDE both predicted on the same day? Seems like some forecasters have too much free time to extrapolate.

In any case, the data is undoubtedly misinterpreted. I own both a desktop PC and an iPod touch. You might think this to be a neutral statistic: I bought a computer and a mobile device, for a score of 1:1.

However, I built my computer from scratch, so no "computer" was shipped to me. Therefore my score is 0:1, resulting in the statistical data that I don't own a computer.

I have a friend who owns a desktop PC, an Android phone, an Android tablet, a netbook and an iPod touch. That's a score of 1:4. Would he give up his desktop? Not a chance.

See, while it may be true that more mobile devices are being sold than PCs, the statisticians fail to realize that most people have a computer or two in addition to their devices. Some people build their own computers. Some people buy them used. Some people keep on using their old machines because they still work fine. Enough with the "device x is going obsolete because of device y" articles.

Computers vs. appliances

[tepples]

Right.. I feel like complaining about the fact that smart phones and ipads etc. ARE personal computers

If applications for a computing device need the device manufacturer's approval before they will run, I call the device an "appliance", not a computer. For example, Apple iDevices are appliances. So are video game consoles and Android phones on AT&T. On the other hand, other Android devices are computers, as are Nokia N900 phones and desktop and laptop PCs.

They have to replace the keyboard first

[erroneus]

Sorry, but no. Nothing beats the keyboard for input. We write and write and write all day long. Touch screens are no substitute for a keyboard. There is no substitute for a keyboard yet. Even if they made a hat that lets you think words, it would still not replace the keyboard.

Re:They have to replace the keyboard first

[eriqk]

Sorry, but no. Nothing beats the keyboard for input.

There's an app for that.

If only people at work can create

[tepples]

I prefer "author" to "content creator" for various reasons, but that's beside my main point:

Pundits talk like most people are purely consumers of content, not creators.

Of course people working for a publisher are more likely to push the misconception that only people working for a publisher can be authors.

At least in the white-collar world, though, almost everyone is a content creator when they're at work.

The problem will come when only people who are at work can afford tools to create. This has already happened in video game development; Nintendo requires an office and previous published titles on someone else's platform before it'll sell you a devkit for one of its platforms.

Consuming

[Locke2005]

By that argument, the iPad is killing the television, not the PC.

Re:there's no good way to target all the platforms

[TheRaven64]

Windows dominance only really happened in the mid '90s. Before then, DOS had a large market share, but Commodore, Atari, Apple, Sinclair and Acorn all had a respectable share of the personal computer market (list of companies varied depending on your location).

Windows only really started to compete seriously with UNIX workstations with NT 4 (and then, only at the bottom end of that market) in 1996, so if you were writing a CAD application (for example), you'd have to target a few *NIX variants and have fun with their varying levels of POSIX / SUS compliance. You also had to deal with the fact that, to actually do anything, you generally needed to use platform-specific extensions - POSIX threads weren't standard, for example, until 1995 and weren't well supported until some years later.

In the handheld market, Microsoft has never had a dominant position. I'm not sure that they've ever had even 20% of the market share.

Differing types of users?

[Firethorn]

My monthly internet and phone costs are amazingly similar, actually. Wtihin $10. $70 for cell phone, $70 for home phone/internet

I'd be more willing to buy unsubsidized phones if the phone companies were willing to give me unsubsidized connection plans.

One thing to remember is that just because the low end of one market overlaps the high end of another, doesn't mean that you're going to get all that many people who buy cheap for one and expensive for the other.

Not many are going to buy a $30k Motorcycle and a $16k econobox car.

Of course, my newest phone was nearly $200(subsidized), my last computer was ~$1000, my last laptop $700.

I don't go with cheap computer equipment; but my computers generally last 6 years(3 mainline, 3 as a server/backup/other). I'm seriously considering a tablet or netbook for my next portable computer; the screen for my phone just isn't big enough for everything.