Will the Desktop PC Live Forever?

concealment points out a rebuttal from PCWorld of the increasingly common claims that we live in a post-PC world. "It's an intriguing proposition, but don't count on mobile devices killing off your desktop PC any time soon. While mobile gear is certainly convenient when you're trying to conduct business on the go, it's nowhere near as convenient as a desktop when you're trying to complete serious work in an office environment. Sure, your phone, tablet or even laptop might conveniently fit in your pocket or backpack, but all these devices are fraught with compromises, whether it's computing power, screen size, or, well, a really expensive price tag."

Comments

Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

That is all.

Re:Yes

[gman003]

Indeed, this is a rare counter-example to Betteridge's Law of Headlines.

Re:Yes

[jxander]

Basically this, with a few reasons

As long as desktop hardware is cheaper than comparable laptop/portable hardware, it will have a niche. You can hook up all the docking stations and external monitors in the world to your tablet, but a desktop rig will have more storage, more memory, more GHz and better longevity (if only due to superior air flow) at a lower cost.

That's not even getting into the ability to customize and replace hardware without a dozen proprietary bits.

Re:Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

These claims of a post-PC world seem based on the fact that the vast majority of the population is fine with the kind of walled-garden content consumption found on nearly all phones and tablets and has no need for the sort of content creation you have to sit down at a workstation for. OK, I'll stipulate to that premise.
But if the shift of that group of people away from the desktop PC means we live in a post-PC world, then what did we have before that group of people started using PCs?
They pretty much didn't come along until we had mainstream GUIs, the World Wide Web, and ubiquitous digital media--all of which came considerably after "the desktop PC".
Their departure won't kill the PC any more than their arrival created it.

Re:Yes

[dgatwood]

Kill, no. Mortally wound, perhaps. Think about it this way: right now, you can get cheap PCs for a few hundred bucks. Adjusted for inflation, computers in the mid-1980s ranged from about $3000-$6000 in today's dollars. Now think back to high school economics class and remember the discussion of economies of scale, then think about how few parts from modern tablets are actually used in a typical desktop computer.

Re:Yes

[jellomizer]

At some point maybe. But I see the PC (including Laptops) to migrate dominance positions to follow the same patterns at the Mainframe (which are still not dead yet)

1970's Mainframe was absolute King No PC to speak of.
1980's Mainframe is king PC was a toy with a few Business applications
1990's Mainframe is considered dieing PC's began to dominate small and midsize companies reducing the needs to big expensive mainframes. Used for Big companies.
2000's Mainframes are still there, PC's are now indespensable and used by most businesses (the PC based servers has taken over the mainframe for most new task) Ultra Mobile Devices are appearing but mostly a toy with a few Business applications.
2010's Mainframes are limited to a few Old Legacy Stuff (too expensive to move off) or some very detailed performance related stuff (Modern Mainframes) Mobile devices get more ingrained into the business and every day use....

Now I see the PC moving away from the personal computer and to more of a high performance workstation usage. This will used mainly by software developers, and engineers for CAD and other high performance work. while the Mobile stuff will dominate every man Computing. As for the mainframe more old legacy systems will go away but still have a market for the really high performance needs.

Re:Yes

[poetmatt]

No part of mainframes has *anything* to do with desktops. It does not correlate in any fashion.

Desktops will always be in use in some fashion - miniaturizing technology only goes so far - so it's not a question of expense alone but also thermals and physical space. Since people tend to have to work on hardware you can't have it all be the size of a mobile SOC to do so or it becomes prohibitive. That's not just a "workstation" situation, but an "All PC's" situation.

Re:Yes

[hairyfeet]

That is pretty much the end of the thread right there, congrats AC.

The only thing I would add is all the morons that are hyping "post PC" simply don't understand the consumer or the market. As someone who has been building units since the 386 and still has no problems moving systems i think I can shed some light on their misconception.

You see people aren't "replacing" anything, they are ADDING to what they already have. What happened was the OEMs and MSFT got spoiled by a little blip in computing history called "the MHz war" where everyone pretty much had no choice but to replace all their systems every 3 years because the hardware was jumping in MHz so often and software following the hardware that a 2 year old desktop would be struggling to run the latest software. in one 4 year period I went from 600Mhz-900MHz-1.4Ghz-2.3Ghz, that's a pretty damned big leap in such a short period of time.

But when Intel and AMD hit the thermal wall they decided to switch to cores, and that was a game changer. You see building software to take advantage of a faster single thread? not that hard, trying to build software to take advantage of multiple threads? VERY hard and there are many tasks that simply can't be broken into multiple threads. Now lets look at what I was selling on the low end FIVE years ago...Phenom I X3 or X4 with 4Gb of DDR 2 RAM and a 300-500Gb HDD. Now is they ANY task your average user does that won't run well on those specs? heck i have a customer running the latest Solidworks on Phenom I X3s and is quite happy with the performance. Even the gamers don't need to upgrade near as often, my boys and I are doing great on a couple of Phenom II X6s and a quad and with HD4850s we blow through any game we want to play and those chips are...what? 4 years old now?

The PC isn't going anywhere, in fact I have yet to meet anyone that doesn't have at least 2 if not more. Hell my LOL customer Ms Pipkin has an Athlon triple for the kids, a Phenom II quad for her main system and a little AMD netbook for when all her family is over or she just wants to sit on her couch and chat. The problem is the OEMs got spoiled on the MHz war and didn't see that these insanely cheap triples and quads were just crazy overpowered compared to the kind of work average users like Ms Pipkin do, that's all. Hell I used to replace my system every year and a half like clockwork but now I have an X6 with 8Gb of RAM, the above HD4850, and 3Tb of hard drive space...what more could I possibly need? So X86 isn't going anywhere, my iPad and iPhone customers still have desktops and laptops, they simply use their iDevices on the couch or bed. All that is happening is that PCs won't be replaced until they die, even the gamers will be looking at only swapping every 6 or 7 years, simply because we have got insane amounts of power. this is why I supplement my business with HTPCs and home theater setups, still plenty of uses for an X86 system people haven't considered yet, you just have to show them the advantages.

Re:Yes

[The Grim Reefer]

At some point maybe. But I see the PC (including Laptops) to migrate dominance positions to follow the same patterns at the Mainframe (which are still not dead yet)

1970's Mainframe was absolute King No PC to speak of. 1980's Mainframe is king PC was a toy with a few Business applications 1990's Mainframe is considered dieing PC's began to dominate small and midsize companies reducing the needs to big expensive mainframes. Used for Big companies. 2000's Mainframes are still there, PC's are now indespensable and used by most businesses (the PC based servers has taken over the mainframe for most new task) Ultra Mobile Devices are appearing but mostly a toy with a few Business applications. 2010's Mainframes are limited to a few Old Legacy Stuff (too expensive to move off) or some very detailed performance related stuff (Modern Mainframes) Mobile devices get more ingrained into the business and every day use....

Now I see the PC moving away from the personal computer and to more of a high performance workstation usage. This will used mainly by software developers, and engineers for CAD and other high performance work. while the Mobile stuff will dominate every man Computing. As for the mainframe more old legacy systems will go away but still have a market for the really high performance needs.

The difference is that home users never had mainframes in their house, nor had any reason to do so. Of course most home users really don't do anything that requires more power than a somewhat high end computer from 10 years ago. Operating systems have become more bloated and some programs have too. But in reality I would guess that most people surf the web and email each other. Which is a good reason why all of these new devices are doing so well. Most people don't need a lot of power for what they use a computer for. Obviously there are exceptions. Hard core gamers on the other hand are probably going to want the most high powered system they can get. I always used to laugh at stock traders in the 90's and early 2000's. They would buy screaming fast computers in the belief that they could somehow trade faster on them.

I agree that people who do a lot of video editing, CAD and such will still want workstations. But I still don't think that desktops are going to go away as fast as or in a similar fashion to mainframes. Most people never had a mainframe.

I do some video editing and play FPS on occasion. My fastest computer is a Phenom X4 9950 with a couple of SSD and SCSI drives, a decent VGA, etc that I got a few years ago. I prefer to do more on it than my laptop I have for work. It's an i7, but due to it being a laptop, it is slower at most things than my old desktop. Granted I could get a faster processor to cut video encoding times down. But I also have a X2 6400 that I also use from time to time to encode video at the same time. I also tend to sit at a desk when I use a computer. I'm also not that interested in using it when I'm on my couch. It'll be interesting to see how things go, but I think it's going to be a good many years until the PC is dead.

Re:Yes

[CanHasDIY]

No part of mainframes has *anything* to do with desktops. It does not correlate in any fashion.

Desktops will always be in use in some fashion - miniaturizing technology only goes so far - so it's not a question of expense alone but also thermals and physical space. Since people tend to have to work on hardware you can't have it all be the size of a mobile SOC to do so or it becomes prohibitive. That's not just a "workstation" situation, but an "All PC's" situation.

Right; some tasks are better done with a full keyboard and a screen bigger than the palm of your hand.

Even if it's solely in a "docking station"* type capacity, desktop workstations will be around for as long as computers are.


* Speculative Future Vision (patent pending) engaged: Come home from work, the computer in your pocket communicates wirelessly with the display/peripherals in the room you're currently occupying, and activates them accordingly. Kind of like Synergy, but with a full suite of features and, of course, fine location awareness.

Re:Yes

[dgatwood]

Even those $300 non-PC computers would be about $639 in today's dollars, which is still more than six times what the cheapest non-Windows netbooks cost today. And they weren't nearly as capable as PCs. Most of the cost savings (except for the CPU) came from ingenious hacks that reduced the cost of the hardware at the expense of maintainability and the ability to upgrade the design later. For example:

• Commodore used software emulation instead of a real UART, which limited them to about 2400 baud and made them particularly challenging if the baud rate on the remote device was off just a bit.
• The Apple II's NTSC output wasn't actually NTSC compliant (read "can't be safely recorded or broadcast") and remained so through at least the IIe. When they added PAL support, it required different graphics hardware.

Now you can certainly argue that those things didn't matter, and for most people, you'd be right, but the same argument that says that the $300 computer was equal to the $2,000 computer in the 1980s applies to touchscreen tablets versus desktop computers today.

Also, the only reason prices aren't $100k per CPU today is because of economies of scale. Today, one person could design a basic Verilog model of a 6502-compatible chip in a matter of days or single-digit weeks, and even at the time, it probably took double-digit engineer years. Today, an Intel chip takes engineer-millennia. The R&D involved is orders of magnitude greater, and therefore, the number of chips they have to sell just to break even is also much, much greater.

Re:Yes

[Kittenman]

... 2010's Mainframes are limited to a few Old Legacy Stuff (too expensive to move off) or some very detailed performance related stuff (Modern Mainframes) Mobile devices get more ingrained into the business and every day use....

Now I see the PC moving away from the personal computer and to more of a high performance workstation usage. This will used mainly by software developers, and engineers for CAD and other high performance work. while the Mobile stuff will dominate every man Computing. As for the mainframe more old legacy systems will go away but still have a market for the really high performance needs.

I make my living off Mainframes, you insensitive clod!

Re:Yes

[AnttiV]

While I'm in general agreeing with you, I must say your numbers/specs are still *way* off. X3/X4 Phenoms with 4Gb RAM and 500Gb was not *nearly* "low-end" five years ago. Vista was released five years ago. Requirements for that was 1GHz 32bit CPU, 1Gb RAM, 40Gb HDD and a 128Mb video card. "Low-end" was machines that did NOT meet those requirements (I was selling systems at that point. Sold many that didn't meet those). 4Gb RAM isn't "low-end" even NOW. (Or then we have entirely different meaning for "low-end".)

Also, "even the gamers will be looking at only swapping every 6 or 7 years" will probably never be true. 6 or 7 years is forever in computer terms and gamers (no matter how casual you are, if you classify yourself as a "gamer") WILL replace their systems far, FAR more frequently. Even I - that myself consider not being a high-end gamer and only replace my graphics card only once per 4-5 generations - replace my system far more frequently. Remember that last "4 generations" of graphics card was about 2-3 years (about). I just replaced my GTX285 few weeks ago and it was only a tad older than 2 years. My Q9650 CPU is pushing four years and it probably has less than a year life in it in my use. (I play quite a lot, but I don't necessarily play the newest games and play only for fun.) I have yet to meet a person that consider himself a "gamer" that DOESN'T replace their desktops once in 5 years. (At least parts of it.)

I'd agree that if one buys a top-end machine NOW, it will only "need" replacement in, perhaps, five years. But after 6-7? It won't be in "gamer-hands" anymore. Perhaps as a "backup" machine, or a machine that is capable of running most games/reduced settings that you've setup somewhere else (other room, summer house, neighbor's, etc..)

Now, "normal users".. THAT I agree 100%. Those girl-next-door, grannies and uncles, cousins and co-workers who do not play. They don't need to replace their machines until those literally don't start up anymore. I know people who use (daily) computers that came with XP (10 years ago) or even Win98. Heck, a friend of mine used a Mac LC II (that's about 20 years ago) up until 2011 (when the PSU died) as her work-computer (she writes).

I don't think "desktop" is going away anytime soon. Augmented, perhaps. Changed, probably. But gone? No. I'd believe the death of laptops sooner than desktops (tablets/other mobile devices are replacing laptops more than desktops).

It's quite simple, really, when you think about it. "The Desktop" will live exactly as long as companies are producing games for it. After that, it'll take a few declining years for it to fade out, but that's basically it. It is (and always have been) games - and thus companies who create games and gamers who play them - that make or break a success of any computing product.

Re:Yes

[PlusFiveTroll]

Anyone that had a 386 desktop then is likely to have a desktop now. Desktops aren't going away for power users and businesses in any time frame that needs worrying about either.

That said there are a lot of casual users that don't need the power of a desktop and are served well enough by a tablet. I have had a lot of customers replace (by attrition) their desktop machines with 17" laptops and a smaller amount get rid of an old desktop and go with an iPad. What we are starting to see in the market now is a shakeout of people that have a PC but don't really need one.

>All that is happening is that PCs won't be replaced until they die,

This right here is what manufactures are afraid of. Selling a device you make almost no profit on, that lasts a decade, and is reliable is the antithesis of the computer market up till recently. This is why all the big names are looking for a place in the commonly replaced and commonly broken tablet market. Maybe this whole post-PC thing is manufactures trying to scare people away from low profit sectors in to higher profit sectors.

Re:Yes

[Kjella]

As long as desktop hardware is cheaper than comparable laptop/portable hardware, it will have a niche. You can hook up all the docking stations and external monitors in the world to your tablet, but a desktop rig will have more storage, more memory, more GHz and better longevity (if only due to superior air flow) at a lower cost.

Ah, but desktops don't have the advantage of shipping volume, laptops do by about a 2:1 advantage. What does that mean? That Intel sets their development goals to make Haswell a better mobile CPU, not particularly a desktop GPU. Since you mention RAM as an example, I find 2x8GB desktop memory for 734 NOK (includes VAT, so please don't compare to US prices) and 2x8GB laptop memory (SO-DIMMs) for 749 NOK. What's the price advantage? Zero. Sure you can get 32/64GB RAM in a desktop that you can't in a laptop but that's a niche workstation market. You can get up to a 1TB SSD in a 2.5" laptop form factor and it doesn't get cheaper using a 3.5" desktop form factor, you just add empty space.

Sure a few things are better, you can't turn a laptop into a 10TB storage server and for a fully decked out 100W processor + 2x300W graphics cards in CF/SLI there's no laptop replacement. But those uses aren't enough to sustain the market share and the less people use desktops, the less support and higher premiums it gets. To cut costs you're pretty soon getting a laptop core in a desktop shell, which again cuts the "true" desktop market of dedicated desktop parts even more. I wouldn't not be so sure that desktop parts will always remain cheaper.

That's not even getting into the ability to customize and replace hardware without a dozen proprietary bits.

Ah, let me bring you back to the 80s, when the motherboard really was the motherboard full of daughter cards. Your network and sound and disk controllers and so on all had their own card, so you could mix and match and replace parts. I could actually go even further back, when people fixed solders and replaced chips on the individual cards too. What happened? Integration. More and more got on the motherboard and if the motherboard broke, get a new one. All-in-one volume and convenience beat flexibility and repair ability. Laptops are the same, volume and convenience of an integrated laptop means the market doesn't care or at least not enough.

Re:Yes

[tolkienfan]

The PC industry started with a few tinkerers.
Then PCs became useful to regular folk.
These regular folk have never cared whether they could write software or hack the hardware, or even open the box.
They are moving on... and into a walled garden.

Few of us have anything to say about it, and we are a tiny minority.

Re:Yes

[bored]

Over time, this has turned out to be the best use of the tablet devices I have.

Once I started running RDP clients on them, it became apparent that many things were just better over RDP that the local tablet apps. Surfing the web for example is significantly better/faster using a windows PC. Even without the add blocking plugins.

Frequently that it takes 1/2 to 1 second to render pages on an iPAD2 that render instantly over RDP. Same with an android device or the touchpad I have..

Having this integrated environment is nice in other ways, I can sit down and do the heavy lifting with three monitors, keyboard and mouse, while being able to stand up walk away and do lightweight things (reading email) on the tablet without having to sync anything.

Re:Yes

[gmhowell]

I make my living off Mainframes, you insensitive clod!

And some people make their living on restoring Model T Fords. Doesn't mean many people want to buy one at the showroom today or that it's a field ripe for growth.

Re:Yes

[flyingsquid]

Will This Counterexample Mean The End of Betteridge's Law of Headlines???

Read on for our exclusive take on this issue!

Re:Yes

[ultranova]

No, actually, the *desktop* PC must pass, if simply because we will have better wearable/integrated computers in the future.

But every advance these wearable/integrated computers get will get rolled back to my desktop PC, which, because it is connected to both mains power and to wired network and has a decent keyboard and display, will forever remain more powerful than the battery/wireless/size-limited wearable/integrated computer.

Your argument is as silly as claiming that the era of artillery will pass just because we have better pistols now, and for the same reason.

Re:Yes

[viperidaenz]

The advantage of a 3.5" mechanical hard drive over 2.5" is twice the usable surface area per platter and room to fit 5 of them in a single drive. The common 9.5mm high 2.5" drives only fit 2 platters. Thats why you see 1TB 2.5" drives and 3TB 3.5" drives.
Technology is developed and built on the larger 3.5" platters. It is then further improved and put on 2.5".

Re:Yes

[jbolden]

Well I have a 1.5T 2.5" drive that's over a year old. But yes I understand. However all those arguments would apply equally well to the original 14" drives. Traditionally as we have moved from 14 to 8 to 5 1/4 to 3 1/2 the technology advances have shifted to the smaller drive with large production and that has led to faster speeds and lower cost per byte. I'd assume most technology innovations in the pipeline are already going for 2.5". SSD and hybrids strike me as the likely thing to push 3.5" into niches.

Re:Yes

[calzones]

After all these millennia, we still use hammers and wedges and still apply thought to "paper" using ink. We like to use our hands to act on other things in order to produce an effect of our imaginations for the world. We like to do this at work benches and desks, etc.

I expect any tool worth exploiting effectively will continue to exist for the rest of humankind's existence as we know it.

Will it become Minority Report style? Perhaps. But that is still arguably a desktop. Could it just be your mobile device wirelessly projecting it's computing capacity onto some larger "desktop"-oriented ergonomically different interfaces? Perhaps, but that is still arguably a desktop.

In other words, it doesn't have to look like a box with a typewriter and a screen to be a desktop pc. The act of working on digital crap at a desk work station will live for a very long long time.

Re:Yes

[fiannaFailMan]

More money spent on iMac = less money spent on PC support and less time spent pulling my hair out to get the damn thing working.

Are these guys kidding?

[mcgrew]

Nothing lives forever. The PC will die eventually... but not any time soon. I can see fewer and fewer desktops in the home, by notebooks and tablets, but there's little you can do in an office that doesn't demand a PC.

Re:Are these guys kidding?

[ericloewe]

Workstations (i.e. where anything important or revenue-generating happens) will always be desktops in one way or another.

What will probably happen is that your average office desktop will get smaller. We're already seeing this, with some desktops using laptop parts, some going as far as using the same power brick as the company's laptop's (HP does this, others too, I suppose).

Re:Are these guys kidding?

[Anonymous Coward]

Take the iMac for instance; it uses NOTHING but laptop parts.

Because everyone knows that 27-inch screens and 3.5" hard disk drives are laptop parts ...

Re:Are these guys kidding?

[Antipater]

Nothing lives forever.

Yes, now. At first we were kept in balance by birth rate. Few of us were ever born, less than a handful each year. Then, I think, the Universe decided that to appreciate life, for there to be change and growth, life had to be short. So the generations that followed us grew old and infirm, and died. But those of us who were first went on. We discovered the Vorlons and the Shadows when they were infant races and nourished them, helped them and all the other races you call the First Ones. In time most of them died, or passed beyond the rim to whatever lies in the darkness between galaxies. We've lived too long, seen too much. To live on as we have is to leave behind joy and love and companionship, because we know it to be transitory, of the moment. We know it will turn to ash. Only those whose lives are brief can imagine that love is eternal. You should embrace that remarkable illusion; it may be the greatest gift your race has ever received.

Re:Are these guys kidding?

[CubicleZombie]

I work in a technical capacity, have 2 big nerdy flatscreens, and my favorite keyboard and mouse. But it's not a desktop PC. It's a laptop in a docking station. That's how it's done in every gig I've had in recent years. I have identical setups in cubicles in two different cities and my home and only the laptop and I have to move between them.

The #1 problem with the arrangement is the requirement for whole disk encryption on the company laptop. It really slows it down. Performance is always worse on a laptop but it's dismal with disk encryption.

Re:Are these guys kidding?

[jedidiah]

...and mainframes. Let us not forget mainframes that are supposed to be long dead by now.

Re:Are these guys kidding?

[Farmer Tim]

Definitely 3.5", unless ifixit employs small children.

Hybrid

[Anonymous Coward]

We're going to see tablets that connect to monitors and keyboards. You work on them at your desk, then move around with them like a laptop. Or at least that's what I dream of. The iPad is close but not quite what I'm looking for. I think the MS's surface might fit the bill.

Re:Hybrid

[grenadeh]

That's completely retarded. So what you're saying is we're going to replace laptops, the superior device, with a crappy device, used to to do the EXACT same things the EXACT same way using slightly different connectors? Oh wait nevermind, tablets can't do the same things. Desktops will never be replaced. Laptops are simply not reliable and not repairable or modifiable by most people, even computer technicians who know how to replace laptop components would not willingly do so on their own.

Re:Hybrid

[grenadeh]

Also, look anachronism up. Improper usage. It makes perfect sense for a 5 year old laptop to not run modern software.

Re:Hybrid

[mcgrew]

We're going to see tablets that connect to monitors and keyboards.

At which point it's no longer a tablet, it's a PC.

Re:Hybrid

[tepples]

So a tablet with a hdmi port and usb is a PC?

To me, a tablet is a personal computer as long as its owner isn't locked into the operating system publisher's own repository. So Windows 8 (x86) tablets are obviously PCs, and Android tablets are PCs, but iPad and Windows RT tablets aren't.

Will the Desktop PC Live Forever?

[Dan East]

I don't see how. Typically, a fan or the PSU goes out first, and given enough time the HDD begins to fail.

Historical anaolgy

[mccrew]

I am reminded of Stewart Alsop's famous quote about mainframes: "I predict that the last mainframe will be unplugged on March 15, 1996." Mainframes are going stronger than ever.

Discuss.

Re:Historical anaolgy

[betterunixthanunix]

Mainframes did not die because they were good for the market they served -- profitable for the vendor, utilized productively by the customer. PCs are different -- utilized poorly by most customers, and not as profitable for the vendor as they could be (oh, if we could just find a way to not allow people to run their own software...). That is why PCs are in greater peril now than mainframes ever were.

You'll still have a computer on your desk, with a monitor, keyboard, and mouse hooked up to it in 20 years. The difference is that you will need to get permission from the vendor before running software on that computer, and you will not have the chance to use your computer to create disruptive technologies. Middle schoolers with a passion for programming will only get to exercise their passion in the tightly controlled environment of their school's computer lab, using the language their teacher demands they use. Programmers will use $10k computers with special licensing structures that most individuals cannot afford.

The issue is not the form, it is the philosophy.

Re:Historical anaolgy

[Lodragandraoidh]

Pretty dystopian view of things. Even if what you said comes to pass, I have faith that someone somewhere would find a way around the problem.

I don't really see that outcome, as history teaches us that while there may be perturbations in the flow of progress, it still continues to move forward. Businesses are seeing the value of open systems - deploying more and more Linux into their network, and chaffing from the limitations imposed by 'black box' vendors - are seeing the business value of having options by casting off their vendor chains. In cloud computing - the freedom of general purpose computing is clearly a positive, as it now separates the management of hardware, from the operating system and applications - providing even more flexibility.

While most consumers will be perfectly happy with the functionality of the tablet computer - there is still a very large minority of people who will pay for the flexibility of a general purpose desktop computer:

1. Hardcore Gamers -- for gamers that play insanely complex simulations (FPS/Flight and combined arms combat simulations), there is no substitute for being able to build and tweak out their own game machine. Console game systems come nowhere near the capabilities of a tricked out game system; and for those who are highly competitive, having the technological edge is worth paying for.

2. Technologists and Scientists - a number of people who program or otherwise work in depth with computers will want to have access to computer resources in real-time for their own personal projects at home. In the old days this was known as 'console access'. It better be able to run all sorts of complex simulations, crunch large amounts of numbers, and compile their latest monster program in nothing flat.

3. Independent Developers - hobbyists and other small scale/independent developers currently can't afford the cost of server grade computers to do their development on. Given the need to provide professional grade systems, at consumer grade prices - this group desires a desktop PC that can provide the best bang for the buck. These are also the same people driving innovation in the marketplace.

Even as small as this group is - they are worth multiple billions of dollars in revenue. If no one caters to their needs, all that revenue would be left on the table. I'm banking that doesn't happen. Given the drive that these people provide - particularly the small developers - for the economy, I don't see it being ignored for very long without serious impacts to the bottom lines of the larger companies who make their living off skimming the proceeds of that work.

Maybe the discussion is all wrong anyway - maybe the form factor will change; maybe it won't be called a desktop (microserver maybe?) - but the functionality of a high performance workstation will exist one way or the other - and I would argue it will be an open system for practical as well as price reasons.

Return of terminals

[Keruo]

I'd like my cell phone to act like a thin client.
Just pop it into charging dock and it gives you browser and email on big screen(s) and rdp client to access applications on server for those things your phone isn't powerful enough itself.
The dock could even have external GPU for extra power.

Re:Return of terminals

[bonehead]

If all you need a PC for is your calendar and email, then, sure, your idea sounds great.

At the last company I worked at the engineers all got new workstations. Super high end stuff, basically the fastest desktop machines money could buy at the time. And Autocad performance was still just in the "OK, but meh...." range for the stuff they were working on.

Do you want to be the one who has to explain to them that from now on they're going to be doing their work on a phone?

Good luck with that.

Heavy Iron will live on

[badford]

Having 3 big arse monitors connected to a giant, lint-filled box humming noisily under my desk will always be a part of my life.

I have ipads, androids, smartphones, netbooks and ultrabook and a bunch of game systems. don't matter.

Re:Heavy Iron will live on

[pla]

Having 3 big arse monitors connected to a giant, lint-filled box humming noisily under my desk will always be a part of my life.

Kudos, you've won the thread. No, really, you made the single most important point so far...

Screen real-estate.

The "computer" itself may (and realistically, will) get smaller and smaller and smaller, until we wear them like cheap costume jewelry. The display device will become something like Google Glasses, or a spiffy holographic projector, or perhaps even a direct neural interface in the long run. But your phone just doesn't make a good working environment (and I mean that in the "good" sense, not the office-drudgery sense). At some point, you will want to sit down, turn on your 3d immersive holographic desktop environment, and get things done.

So really, I suppose we have a convergence rather than an extinction... Desktop PCs will do just fine, because every phone will work as one. On the subway, it will give you a nice small privacy-protecting interface. At the office, it will fill a wall or entire cubicle with what you need to work on. And at home, it will project por... Er... Whatever form of entertainment you prefer to engage in.

Will that mean the PC has died? No. It will mean your phone now has the power - The display power (CPU power has already largely become a moot point for the vast majority of uses) - Of what you would have used as a desktop PC instead.

Yes, in zombie form.

[tpstigers]

And they will all be using Internet Explorer 6.

Concept versus form factor

[betterunixthanunix]

The form factor is not going away any time soon. Eventually it will be replaced, I do not know with what, but it is likely that such a thing will not happen for a long time -- maybe not even within our lifetimes.

The concept is already dying. The idea that you can own the means of your own computing, and not have it be controlled or dictated to you by someone else, is on its last legs. We have been watching it die a painful deal for the past few years, and by 2020 personal computing as a concept will be forgotten by most of society.

Gaming

[alphax45]

For now nothing beats a desktop for a gaming PC. I just built a new one and got Steam. Nothing else like it right now.

Re:Gaming

[Mashiki]

Yeah, except that developers have been fleeing consoles and coming back to the PC market for the last 3 years because it's a declining market. More so because PC's are a booming market not only in the Americas but in Asia. And it'll probably be another 2-3 years before consoles catch up. Let's not forget that as it stands, PC gaming is limited by consoles right now...6 year old hardware.
 

No, but it will be around for quite some time.

[santax]

Let's face it, the pc is very efficient in some things. Like text processing, image editing, programming, all tasks that depend heavily on user input are preferable done on a pc or laptop. A device that has decent input options. Typewriters replaced handwriting and the pc replaced those, the pc will be viable until someone comes up with a clever way to do those input tasks in a matter that is just as reliable as a keyboard/mouse but faster. That someone will become really rich btw. Till that day, I'm keeping my pc.

Re:No, but it will be around for quite some time.

[santax]

No last thing I want is to get my thoughts spelled out on a screen when my secretary is bending over to reach for my pen/calculator/notebook/mobile, that I accidentally dropped. In front of her. For the 5th time. That hour.

The newest and greatest

[ADRA]

tape killed records (effectively), CD's killed tape, InternetAudio is killing CD's
VHS killed BETA, DVD killed VHS, VideoDisc killed nothing, BluRay clipped but hasn't kill DVD
HD killed SD, 3D didn't kill anyone, 4K has yet to kill anything
PC's killed the MAC classic / UNIX workstations, Laptops clipped (desktop) PC's, Netbooks killed nothing, Tablets have yet to kill anything
really dumb cell phones clipped POTS, dumb cell phones killed really dumb cell phones and pagers, Smart phones killed dumb cell phones
digital video cameras killed film video camera's (effectively)
Video killed the radio star

Re:The newest and greatest

[Anonymous Coward]

Digital video cameras killed film video camera's what?

I don't think they get it

[93 Escort Wagon]

Admittedly the "Post-PC World" comments involve quite a bit of hyperbole - but this was never about what happens in businesses, at least in those cases where someone's entire day involves inputting stuff into a computer (whether that's as a programmer, a web developer, or an office jockey). The concept of the post-PC world is more about what's happening in the personal lives of everyday individuals (which doesn't include most Slashdotters).

The majority of people that have owned a home computer don't really use it for much more than browsing the web, email, and viewing photos or videos. For those folks, a tablet or a phone works just fine - and nowadays even their TV will let them watch YouTube or Netflix videos. They don't need a PC - heck, a PC is actually more inconvenient for their purposes than these other options are. And even if they take photos... they're probably just uploading them as-is directly to Facebook or Flickr.

So yeah, the PC won't exactly be dying anytime soon... but fewer and fewer individuals will be owning one.

Re:do we still have mainframes?

[afgam28]

And no one said it would. This is a really dumb article which totally misses the point of what the term "post-PC" means. If you click the first link in the article, it says it in black and white:

It started last year...when (Steve Jobs) said that PCs are going to be "like trucks" in that they'll still be around and useful for certain work, but only a smaller percentage of the users will need one

Somehow the author (and submitter) have taken that to mean a world "without desktop computers".

Sure, desktops will have their place for a long time. But we're living in a post-PC world right now.

KVM

[labnet]

The cornerstone of of any creative work:-
  CAD
  Photo / Video Editing
  Document Creation / Coding (to a lesser extent)

still require KVM:-
  Tactile Keyboard (touch typing requires the feeling of the edge of keys for long term typing)
  Mouse (because it more precise than fingers which occlude the display)
  Large Hi Res MultipleMonitors.

+ USB to interface with odd devices such as cameras, serial busses (RS232, RS485, CAN Bus, MIDI, etc etc), tablet inputs etc.

So while it does not need to be a big black box under your desk, the 'Personal Computer' will be with us for a while yet, until the boffins can tap replace the KVM/IO configuration.

Portable + dock.

[metrometro]

We'll have a phone-sized computer that can dock and provide a complete desktop experience from any compatible monitor / keyboard / charging setup. The upshot is that you can port your life around from place to place without actually carrying much hardware, with enormous rewards to the hardware firm who controls the most popular standard, because it'll be in every workplace, hotel, school...

This has been tried and sucked. Same as tablets circa 2004. This will require some tight standards and UX design to make the transitions from mobile to desktop really stable and seamless, which points to a certain control-obsessed fruit company having a decent shot.

Given hardware trends, we're less than 5 years away from a mass-market phone-sized desktop replacement.

On the go

[Chemisor]

It seems to be a trend these days to do things "on the go". The boss likes to know that you are working all the time, even when you are not at the office. You want to pretend you are this active guy who lives outdoors and has never sat down in a chair (because that's the type of guy that women claim to want want). Eventually we'll all realize that it is much more convenient to use a desktop on a nice big desk with a comfortable chair than it is to balance a tablet, keyboard, and mouse on your wobbly knees sitting in a lawn chair. We'll also realize that most of us are not "on the go" all the time. Most of us stay in one place and only go places for recreational purposes that do not require computing devices.

Display space

[Barlo_Mung_42]

My main battle station uses two 22" display, one 24" display and one 15" display giving me 6486 horizontal pixels. I use them all. When I can do that with a laptop that I can easily carry with me I'll think about it.

Laptops are actually becoming less useful

[eyegone]

Laptops seems to be moving in the "media consumption" direction, becoming less and less useful for actual work all the time.

Try to find a laptop with a 16x10 display. I get that 16x9 panels are less expensive, but it blows my mind that no one makes a "premium" business laptop with a 16x10 display. (I specifically exclude Apple from the business category here, due to the lack of things like docking stations, dual external display support, etc.)

It's incredibly frustrating for those of us who need to do real work while travelling.

Re: building

[betterunixthanunix]

I predict a future wherein we buy smartphone-sized computer casings and put the CPU, memory, post-SSD storage stuff, etc in there with tweezers.

...and I predict that you will not be able to connect that to any other computers, until you insert a special smartcard that burns itself out every thirty days. You will not be able to connect to the Internet, you will not be able to do your banking, you will not be able to share your birthday pictures with Grandma unless you buy access rights. Should you find a way to connect to another computer without making such a purchase, you will have become a criminal hacker, facing five years in prison for violating 60 different laws.

The death of PCs has nothing to do with form factor, and everything to do with the concept and purpose of PCs. We could have had computer access in every home via mainframes, by having terminals with x.25 connections. Of course, we would have had no innovation, but then again, why would the industry giants want to allow for disruptive technologies? The PC is one of the few examples in human history where entrenched interests were completely blindsided by a couple of commoners trying to help each other out (and now that those commoners are in positions of power, they recognize that they must prevent such disruption in the future).

My eyes are failing!!!

[cvtan]

So I'm not going to watch TV/movies/slideshows (or do gaming) on a cell phone unless they are 27" across. Besides, Verizon is annoying.

Not a "personal computer" if it is not yours

[betterunixthanunix]

If you do not control your computer, if you cannot run whatever software you feel like, if you need to ask permission to do things, then it is not a "personal computer." It does not matter if it has a keyboard, mouse, and monitor; we can make a thin client with a connection to a mainframe that has such an interface, but that would not be a PC either.

Desktop is needed now

[eexaa]

...and will be for quite some time, because we don't have any more convenient platform to do actual work.

I mean, did anyone try to do programming, system administration and/or serious graphics or writing on iPad and alikes?

And it's not about screen size, it's basically ONLY about having input devices that don't make your wrists rot away if you use them more than 2 hours daily.

PS. do you count traditional notebooks (15" and bigger screens) as desktop computers? (I do.)

Processing power needed in "UI devices"

[tepples]

I think we'll actually approach the point where you only have one "computer" and that what you carry is the user interface and cache.

In practice, you're going to need a lot of cache, especially if you want to go offline. And this means you're going to have to have a lot of processing on your user interface devices so that they can act on cached data while not connected to a high-speed, high-volume network. Current cellular technology (LTE, which can be thought of as 4G lite) is high-speed but not high-volume, with single digit GB/mo transfer caps being the industry standard. So even though you'll likely have one shared set of documents among all your devices, they'll all need to be "computers" for the foreseeable future.

Early days

[shmlco]

"...but there's little you can do in an office that doesn't demand a PC."

Today. I wrote about this not too long ago, and think people miss the point regarding the "post-PC" world. It's not, you see, that tablets are going to replace existing methods of doing existing work on existing computers.

It's that more and more existing methods and jobs and tools are going to be restructured and modified and rethought so they can be done on tablets and pads and other mobile devices. Instead of sitting at a desk plugging in data, that data will be scanned and entered into tablets the field. Instead of sitting at a desk reading reports, you're going to be sitting in a conference room or in a cab or train or plane reading reports.

And it's a self-reinforcing cycle. More and more sites and apps will be created and modified for tablets, which makes them even more useful, which induces more people to convert sites and build apps, which makes tablets and mobile devices even more useful, and on, and on.

Keep in mind it's early days. I mean the first iPad shipped just over two years ago, in 2010. Where was the desktop personal PC at that age?

http://www.isights.org/2012/04/ipads-in-business-time-to-stop-laughing.html

In a post-lemming world

[tepples]

In a post-Lemming, post-Apple v. Samsung world, what platform allows people to run both major-label applications and homemade applications that haven't been approved by the operating system publisher?

Re:In a post-lemming world

[BasilBrush]

The same one that suffers from lots of malware.
People who care about creating their own programs: 0.01%. (and that's being generous.)
People who care about not getting malware: 99.99%.

Re:In a post-lemming world

[tepples]

In fact, it is only iOS that doesn't allow it.

And Windows RT/Windows Phone 8. And the game consoles.

Re:In a post-lemming world

[BasilBrush]

Malware volume is directly proportional to a systems market share; grow big enough to be noticed by the criminals, and they'll start focusing on breaking your stuff.

The facts don't support your theory. When iOS was the market leader, and Android the minority, it was still Android which was getting virtually all the malware.

Naivete is cute.

You think you're cute?

Re:do we still have mainframes?

[jedidiah]

Steve made a shitty analogy.

Most people like trucks. They are more useful. They have even been morphed into family cars that were a Detroit cash cow for awhile.

No. PCs aren't trucks. They're just regular cars.

Steve was just trying to denigrate PCs to distract from the fact that he's a scooter salesman.

Re:Why does it matter?

[epyT-R]

yeah you know what? the day I need to use biometrics or some other bullshit involuntarily used to 'authorize' me to my devices and the vendor strings that pull them, is the day I quit using tech altogether.

It matters because the concept of empower the user is being replaced by trapping the user into a platform. It's not just about the form factor, it's about the concept that spawned the PC. This is what really separates all those other gadgets from it.

Off by more than an order of magnitude

[tepples]

People who care about creating their own programs: 0.01%. (and that's being generous.)

In 2004, the U.S. population was 293 million (source). By your estimate of 100 programmers per million, you'd expect there to be 29,000 programmers. But in that year, there were 760,840 people employed as software engineers in the United States, who made up about one out of every three engineers in the nation (source). That's not even counting people who aren't programmers per se but whose job includes some programming, computer science and software engineering students, and hobbyist programmers. So I'd guess your estimate is off by two orders of magnitude.

People who care about not getting malware: 99.99%.

There are ways to limit the damage that malware can cause without forcing everybody who buys a computer to rely exclusively on a single application repository curated by the operating system publisher and subject to said publisher's ulterior motives. For example, a platform could use the Ubuntu/Android model of having multiple competing repositories. Or it could use the OLPC/Android model of limiting the capabilities given to an application while still allowing self-signed software to run.

The Same As...

[dcollins]

- Books killed storytelling.
- Movies killed theater.
- Videos killed radio.
- Arcades killed boardgames.

Think Smaller

[Motard]

When I compare what used to sit on my desktop in the '80s, to a smartphone today, it's really not too much of a leap to imagine a final form factor that will be very much like a credit card. Eventually, this 'CCPC' may have an integrated screen, but interim editions may drive a separate screen you keep in your wallet along with your extra battery capacity.

These screens will only be used to lookup a phone number or to perform other 'console-type' functions. Screens of varying sizes will be everywhere. In your car, at work, at home, in your hotel room (instead of a TV). Likewise, speakers, keyboards and any other peripherals you may need will be everywhere. You'll be able to walk into a client's boardroom, pair your machine with their wall mounted display and give your presentation. Then you can get back in your car and its touch display will be paired with your device so you can use navigation and get reminders.

Most of us will probably have at least two CCPCs. One for personal business and one for company business. We'll just carry them both around as we carry around multiple credit/debit/reward cards (which will all be made redundant). The credit card is already a proven form factor for being small enough to be supremely portable, but not so small that it is easily lost.

Back when the Macintosh was introduced, it was fashionable to use computery MICR fonts to make your company look high tech. But with laser printing and desktop publishing, the last thing you wanted was to produce something that looked like it came out of a computer.

I think a similar thing is about to happen in the next evolution. Right now, the world wants stylish new smartphones. But soon, having a device that's actually visible to others - and especially fiddling around with it - will make you look like a luddite. Instead, we'll conjure images onto the nearest touch display 'ourselves'.

The CCPC will become *more* personal (and ever more powerful), but no longer bound by the desktop. Sure, your desk may have 12 displays that you use during the work day, but when you walk away, you'll take their brains with you. You probably won't even need to log out.