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Half a Billion PCs To Ship In 2013, As Desktops and Laptops Dip But Tablets Grow
An anonymous reader writes "The PC market (desktops, notebooks, and tablets) is expected to see almost half a billion units ship this year, 493.1 million to be exact, representing 7 percent year-on-year growth. Unsurprisingly, the key driver behind this growth will be tablets, accounting for 37 percent of the overall market and seeing 59 percent growth to 182.5 million units. The latest estimates come from Canalys, an independent analyst firm. Nevertheless, it's worth emphasizing that these are estimates, though they do line up with what the broader industry is seeing: desktops are down, laptops are down, but tablets are up."
And who said PCs are dying? Easy to solve that problem...
All we need to do is redefine what a PC is (desktops, notebooks, and tablets)!
Problem Solved!
Simples!
Millions of geeks saddled with supporting family and friends who have no business getting near a general purpose computer, celebrate the advent of tablets for browsing/email/casual gaming.
faily innovative
Sounds about right.
PC's are big, expensive, power hungry and noisy.
Tablets are small, cheap, portable, silent, generally have a camera, speakers, and microphone which gives them built in telephony features, and an easy UI. I can buy a decent tablet for less than $100 on eBay or the local discount store.
What are the redeeming qualities of a PC? Tactile IO: there is something to be said about a typing with a keyboard as opposed to a flat screen. Better audio and video quality: its just has a bigger screen and a better presentation system then a system with micro speaker and 7" screen. Deeper interfaces. For all the issues that Window's has its can do more then a tablet OS. Modularity, Upgrade-ability, and repair-ability: If I want a bigger screen I buy one for my PC. If want bigger screen in tablet I have to buy a whole new machine.
For these issue PC's will always be around. But they will get pushed in the development and special needs category in the next decade or so. Tablets will keep coming down in prices. Operation system like Ubuntu that give tablets more of the PC's feature. One off devices like the Roku and game systems like the XBox One will take up the home media center and entertainment.
You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
Yes, but I'm also saddened for a generation of kids who grow up interacting w/ computers to only consume media, not to create.
Steve Jobs put forth that computers were ``bicycles for the mind'' [1] --- but this switch to tablets is taking general purpose computers out of the hands of our kids and replacing it w/ an interactive TV. While there have been some web mentionings of it [2] I can't find a copy of the ad, or a full set of the quotes. [3]
Where are the brilliant creativity and programming tools for Tablets? (and I say this as a person who uses Autodesk Sketchbook, Creaturehouse Expression, Futurewave SmartSketch, Macromedia FreeHand, Runtime Revolution and Lotus Improv on his Tablet PC)
I'd love to have a list of great creativity tools for tablets (though I wonder how much good it'll do --- I've been unsuccessful in getting my son to d/l and install Petit Computer [4] )
1 - http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Bicycle.txt
2 - http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2011/12/21/steve-jobs-bicycle-for-the-mind-1990/
3 - http://creativityandinnovation.blogspot.com/2011/10/steve-jobs-amazing-quotes.html
4 - http://www.petitcomputer.com/
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
A PC is a proper computer
A "proper computer"? A tablet or a smartphone or even a pocket calculator are proper computers. They are all general purpose computers with a CPU, RAM and storage. I agree with your premise that the market segmentation matters between tablets and PCs but they are both "proper computers" by any reasonable definition. The only real difference between them is the software that determines the interface. You could easily take the tablet and put a mouse and keyboard on it just like you could take a PC and put a touchscreen on it. The segments matter because they are optimized for particular uses right now but the segments are going to converge over time. The line between a tablet and a PC is going to blur and Google, Apple and Microsoft have already started the process.
PCs are, as many of us agree, not dying, but they are changing and becoming a niche product -- again.
The term "personal computer" was in a way a misnomer, because personal computers existed before: we called them "workstations", and at the time they were quite a revolution, because we could do whatever we wanted with them instead of sharing computing time on Unix boxen, VAX, or mainframes. They were also super expensive, enough that they were not worth the money except for specific tasks where computing independence was absolutely required,
The "personal computer" revolution should really have been called the "small office computer" or "home computer" revolution: these were new kinds of "workstations" that were cheap enough that we could buy them for ... small offices and homes.
I predict that we're moving back in time, in a way. Most consumers would prefer tablets and similar devices. For those of us that need serious computing power, we will still have our computers to buy. But they will likely be targeted and priced accordingly for the "prosumer" market. It would be easy to buy a cheap tablet, but forget about cheap laptops: manufacturers won't make them because they won't sell well. Instead, they'll focus on premium desktop computers for premium users.
So let's call them "workstations" again. Meanwhile the term "personal computer" may finally make perfect sense for phones and tablets: truly "on-person" computers.