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The Desktop Is Dead, Long Live the Desktop!

Posted by Soulskill on from the don't-abandon-your-battlestation dept.

theodp writes "'The desktop or laptop is now in decline,' writes John Sall, 'squeezed from one side by mobile platforms and from the other side by the cloud. As a developer of desktop software [by choice not necessity], I believe it is time to address the challenges to our viability. Is software for the desktop PC now the living dead, or zombieware.' While conceding there's some truth to truisms about the death of the desktop, Sall believes there's still life in the old desktop dog, 'We live in a world of computing where dreams come true,' Sall concludes. 'The mainframe bows to the minicomputer. The minicomputer bows to the personal computer. The personal computer bows to the tablet and smart phone. It seems as if these will soon bow to the smart watch or smart glasses. But at each step along the way, some applications find their best home – and other applications as well as new applications find the more convenient and smaller home better...So let's keep our desktops and laptops, our PCs and Macs. They are amazingly good at what they do.'"

15 of 453 comments (clear)

  1. make my day... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Go ahead. Fire up SolidWorks on your pad or phone. Or AutoCAD. Go On. I dare you.
    Now tell me the desktop is dead.

    1. Re:make my day... by Dunbal · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Even outsourced jobs require a desktop. Just they won't be sold in your first world market. Aaaanyway I don't see the desktop as dying, but I do see it moving into a niche for power users, developers and gamers.

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      Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
    2. Re:make my day... by Joce640k · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Rubbish.

      The only people who can migrate are the people who only do Facebook/Youtube.

      Reason: People who do any kind of job/work need a screen bigger than 10".

      The PC market will stabilize again once those people are out of the way.

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      No sig today...
    3. Re:make my day... by geeper · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I agree...developer and gamers. And finance, engineering, graphic design, manufacturing/planning, the list goes on and on.

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      Error reading device 'Signature'. (A)bort, (R)etry, (F)ail?
    4. Re:make my day... by ILongForDarkness · · Score: 4, Insightful

      power users, developers and gamers: so the majority of users then? I think most people play games occasionally. It might be going the way of the cable package: you might hardly ever watch anything on your tv anymore (at least not something that isn't PVR'd, hulu, etc other equally available from the net content) but you won't cut the cord because well you might ... sometime + the occasional Star Trek marathon or sporting event. Similarly writing your resume, doing your taxes etc on a cell phone would suck so you need to have a desktop around even if you rarely use it.

      I think a more realistic scenario will be that tablets/phones get powerful enough that people use docking stations when they need a bigger form factor, but to me that is still a desktop (not sure what the official categorization is) just like having a Mac Mini attached to a 30" screen and full sized keyboard would be a desktop. My guess would be that most corporate devices remain laptop desktop form factors for the next 10+ years. If they aren't portable they aren't getting lost/broken at bars. The hardware will remain likely cheaper but at worst the same cost as a smaller form factor, and likely will have a longer useable life (there is a cost to miniaturization and it is usually both performance and hardware faults both which lead to more rapid hardware churn).

    5. Re:make my day... by g0bshiTe · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I blame the design of the Windows 8 UI.

      Thanks for turning my $1000 gaming computer into a useless tablet.

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      I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
    6. Re:make my day... by Deep+Esophagus · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yup, gamers. My son was all about the portability of a laptop, but he finally gave up and went back to big iron because the desktop box was easier to upgrade and repair, had more RAM and HD capacity, and (most important to him) far better framerates on his FPS games.

      I keep a laptop in a travel bag for the rare occasion I need to compute on the move, but all my important work is on the desktop box. I'll give it up when they pry the GeForce card from my cold, dead hands...

  2. Every year by twocows · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Every year we hear about how the desktop is dying and every year it doesn't. When will these idiots realize that desktop PCs are a niche that's not going to go away? It might shrink, especially compared to other forms of computing. But reports of its death have been greatly exaggerated.

    1. Re:Every year by Dunbal · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Not dying, just moving towards a much smaller equilibrium point to reflect the size of their niche. Most people realize now that they can get all their computing needs from a phone. Some people will always need the raw computing power, the graphics power, the server ability, etc that only comes with a desktop. Poking around at a clumsy interface with your fingers is ok for occasional tasks, but keyboards and mice are specialized in what they do and so far nothing more efficient has come along to replace them. The same with multiple, big monitors. I have 3 23" monitors on my desk side by side - I love the horizontal real estate. It lets me track several things at once. Until you can give me a phone that I can plug my monitors, keyboard and pointing device to and that has the same speed, RAM and graphics ability I will be staying with desktops. I see no reason to "downgrade".

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      Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
  3. personal computing by marcello_dl · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The personal computer is not a form factor, it is a philosophy.
    No dependence on centralized service, computing done by the user, for the user.
    Unless done properly, cloud and toys (smartphones, tablets) are a regression into the mainframe era. Give your toys enough control and you'll see.

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    ---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
  4. Creators versus Consumers by korbulon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    There is no true death here: only an inevitable and natural partitioning of platforms based on target usage. Desktop PCs had a good run (three decades) as a platform for both creation and consumption, but the world has changed. Phones and tablets are better-suited for consumption (literature, movies, music, games, web-browsing), but PCs are still the best practical platform for creation (writing, editing, composition, game development, web-site building). And yet this is all pretty obvious. Of course PC market-share will go down, way down, as it must. But the sensationalist media can't help but to bandy about terms like "living dead" when describing the desktop PC industry because - as any MBA is more than happy to tell us - in business, lack of growth equals death.

    It's as though they have seized upon a mercantilist mentality of a world divided exclusively into winners and losers. World ain't like that.

  5. My wallet says otherwise by DEFFENDER · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Haven't you seen the Star Citizen promo? Here. The PC and it's capabilities are not dead to the tune of $33.7 Million USD and counting.

    Just because a newer or different technology sells well and meets one segments needs (business) doesn't mean that the old one will die. I mean seriously, how many of you are still running a tape library out there?

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    Careful what you say around me.. I will assume you mean it.
  6. No. The Desktop Lives. by crow · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The desktop isn't even pretending to die.

    Yes, it's not the big hot thing anymore. Laptops took over the hot spot a few years ago, but for the purpose of software, they're generally the same as desktops. Now tablets and phones are cutting into the laptop market.

    But the markets are huge. Even a 90% decline would still leave a substantial market with opportunities for new products. It's only a problem for companies with established dominant products. If you are depending on upgrade or support sales to an established base, then a declining base is a problem.

    The comparison to mainframe may be particularly apt. While everyone likes to talk about how the mainframe was replaced my mini computers and later desktops, this isn't really true. There are lots of companies with large mainframe deployments. It's still a multi-billion dollar industry.

  7. Not dead, just a mature market by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Exactly. For content consumption, small and mobile devices are very convenient. For quick interactions, they're OK. For serious content creation, they are just not the right tool for the job.

    The trouble for the PC vendors is that for most serious content creation, desktops and laptops were already powerful enough a few years ago. Only those who really need local power, like creative media or CAD types in business or gamers at home, are interested in buying newer and more powerful machines often any more. For everyone else, the desktop isn't dead, it's just a mature platform and they already have it.

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  8. Re:not dead just people dont like windows 8 by Lester67 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    For some reason that is the 800lb gorilla in the room... Windows 8 did more to damage the Laptop and Desktop market than anyone is willing to give them credit for. (8 and 8.1 are actually not too bad... ON A TABLET.)