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

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: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.

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.

Awesome

[Hatta]

I'm sick of being politically correct.

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.

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

[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.