Entelligence: The death of the PC is greatly exaggerated (at least for now)
By Michael Gartenberg 
posted August 7th 2009 3:30PM
posted August 7th 2009 3:30PM
Entelligence is a column by technology strategist and author Michael Gartenberg, a man whose desire for a delicious cup of coffee and a quality New York bagel is dwarfed only by his passion for tech. In these articles, he'll explore where our industry is and where it's going -- on both micro and macro levels -- with the unique wit and insight only he can provide.
In one of the great blunders of journalism, Mark Twain once found his name listed in the obituary column. His famous reply, "Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated," has forever become part of our lexicon for describing hyperbole. Yet, at a certain point in time, Mark Twain's death was no longer exaggeration and Samuel Clemens did indeed pass away. Today, many are lamenting the passing of the personal computer as the information device of choice for the masses of consumers, and like Mark Twain, the news of its death is greatly exaggerated. But like all good things, the PC and its complex operating system foundation will also eventually come to an end. Here's why the PC isn't dead yet but over time might no longer be the dominant platform for the digital age.
We've heard about the death of the PC for years. The internet, Java, and network computers all laid claim to killing the PC. Today, it's all about internet tablets and smartphones. Each has had a turn in the sun as the poster child for killing the PC, but the fact remains that the PC is alive and well. Traditional PC vendors still ship systems in record numbers even in this down economy, and the reason is simple: the PC is the ultimate Swiss army knife for information technology. Want the Internet -- with rich content, applications that live in the cloud, and the latest browser technology? Well, you need a PC. Need to access corporate information, communicate and collaborate with others? That's PC work as well. Even entertainment functions like gaming, managing music and photo collections, and social networking are still PC territory.
Unless you are willing to live with a subset of dedicated functionality, most consumers are going to want and need a PC. And while the Swiss army knife delivers a multitude of functions but does none of them well, the PC is both the jack of all trades and master of everything. For office productivity use, internet access, entertainment and communication the PC remains unrivaled in terms of its abilities. But that doesn't mean that the PC will live forever.
PCs have historically tracked two paths: 1) enhanced sophistication and functionality and 2) increased complexity. While empowered by new features, users have also contended with growing complexity that often obscures the task at hand. However, this trade-off has been better for most users -- that's why challenges to the PC like the stripped-down Network Computer have failed over the years. However, it's not hard to argue that PCs are becoming more complex than necessary and that other devices are offering simpler modes of operation and steadily increasing functionality are getting closer to crossing that magical "it's good enough" line. Today's smartphones are showing signs of reaching this point in the near future -- there's a growing class of user that leaves their laptop behind on occasion. The very flexibility of the PC that enables so many new tasks and functions may ultimately become its downfall. PCs are simply getting too complex, difficult and expensive for most consumers to master and maintain.
The key to any transition to life beyond the PC will be the ability of vendors to balance technology and features against complexity and functionality. We may see whole new classes of devices emerge that can take on the task of the PC in more elegant and easier to use ways. But that's for the future. For now, it's a PC dominated world.
Have you tried to replace a PC in your daily life yet? If you have, successfully or not, drop me a line and tell me about the experience.
Michael Gartenberg is vice president of strategy and analysis at Interpret, LLC. His weblog can be found at gartenblog.net, and he can be emailed at gartenberg AT gmail DOT com. Views expressed here are his own.
We've heard about the death of the PC for years. The internet, Java, and network computers all laid claim to killing the PC. Today, it's all about internet tablets and smartphones. Each has had a turn in the sun as the poster child for killing the PC, but the fact remains that the PC is alive and well. Traditional PC vendors still ship systems in record numbers even in this down economy, and the reason is simple: the PC is the ultimate Swiss army knife for information technology. Want the Internet -- with rich content, applications that live in the cloud, and the latest browser technology? Well, you need a PC. Need to access corporate information, communicate and collaborate with others? That's PC work as well. Even entertainment functions like gaming, managing music and photo collections, and social networking are still PC territory.
Unless you are willing to live with a subset of dedicated functionality, most consumers are going to want and need a PC. And while the Swiss army knife delivers a multitude of functions but does none of them well, the PC is both the jack of all trades and master of everything. For office productivity use, internet access, entertainment and communication the PC remains unrivaled in terms of its abilities. But that doesn't mean that the PC will live forever.
The very flexibility of the PC that enables so many new tasks and functions may ultimately become its downfall. |
The key to any transition to life beyond the PC will be the ability of vendors to balance technology and features against complexity and functionality. We may see whole new classes of devices emerge that can take on the task of the PC in more elegant and easier to use ways. But that's for the future. For now, it's a PC dominated world.
Have you tried to replace a PC in your daily life yet? If you have, successfully or not, drop me a line and tell me about the experience.
Michael Gartenberg is vice president of strategy and analysis at Interpret, LLC. His weblog can be found at gartenblog.net, and he can be emailed at gartenberg AT gmail DOT com. Views expressed here are his own.
Just on a side note, aren't Apples computers for personal use? So...are they NOT PCs, too? All the marketing jargon and feuds between Mac vs. PC is irrelevant. Apple, by definition, you're a PC, too. Suck it up, deal with it, and lower your prices for your awesome products. Microsoft, you weren't the first PC OS on the market, either. YOU suck it up, deal with it, and keep your prices reasonable on your awesome products.
Hoo-rah for the PC!!!! Long Live The King Of Data Access!!!
As a financially underfunded college kid, I've had to make do with my WinMo phone and some portable applications on it's memory card. I found I was simply always on the go, plus I enjoy the convenience of being able to stay in contact wherever I go (mostly...but that's a Sprint rant for another time). However, my memory card obviously requires a computer, and my phone is useful really only for SMS/e-mail/mobile internet. Most websites do not support a mobile version, and even if they did it's a very cramped screen to use all of the time.
I see a trend moving towards portability with applications on flash/more use of Blackberry and PPC's/Netbooks, but I don't believe that means personal computers are dying. We're just making use of more devices of limited ability while away from our beloved machines. If anything, personal computers are in greater quantity than ever. A single computer household, by my experience, is much rarer. Usually another desktop or a notebook complements the "home PC".
I do see a interesting application and market in these portable computing options. Campuses and business with nothing but terminals and portable memory provides the software. Phones attached to sophisticated sensors for augmented reality applications.
tl;dr The iPhone will become the Tri-corder of Star Trek fame.
My PC isn't dying, it is getting better,
it is likely that when my Computer is running a 128 core CPU and 8EB of RAM your smartphone will just about have a Quad Core and 8GB of RAM.
I think the market is pushing for a more client server model. In a business environment it is not necessary to have huge hard drives when you can just store your files on a server somewhere. In the home as networks get better and more reliable I think this will also become more the reality. Especially when you have websites and services providing streaming movies over the internet and services like OnLive (if successful) possibly providing streaming videos games. Also I think it will be interesting to see what happens in terms of how we interact with computers. Smart phones, Desktops, Tablets all have the capability to be good clients but they don't all have the same ability to handle user input. The keyboard and mouse I don't think are going away for a very long time. Nothing has really surpassed a keyboard when it comes to inputting text.
So in short I do not think the desktop is going away just transforming as companies work to move the actual work a desktop does from the desktop and into the cloud.
It's a few months old, but I'll agree about the keyboard. Once you learn how to properly keyboard (and it really only takes a couple of months), you'll learn to hate text messaging on a phone as much as I do.
Every few months or years we get another story about the death of an ubiquitous piece of technology... they're almost never right.
It's possible that personal computers will disappear one day, but it's not predictable at the moment. If you include client/server models such as "cloud computing" and so on as PCs, then not in any scenario outside of sci-fi.
When PCs cam along they predicted the death of books. Who would want to sit on the sofa and read, or outside, or in bed, when they could sit in an office chair at their desk and read on a glowing screen? Needless to say, it didn't happen.
Then, with the advent of YouTube, came the call that the TV was doomed. Surely, rather than watch whatever was on or have the enormous effort of taking a DVD off of the shelf and putting it in a player, the family would now sit on office chairs around their PC watching their movie, after it downloaded, in a magnificent small window?
Then the same arguement was given for TV on your cellphone. Oddly enough, people still prefer to slump on their couch at home with their remote in hand and a big screen instead of watching TV while "out and about".
Then, laptops will be the death of desktops and fixed installations. We'll do our we browsing leant back on the sofa, using the trackpad, with our laptops precariously balanced on one knee. Except many people won't. And we'll work, sat outside in the sunshine, grinning inanely at our 13" screen (probably because we can't see it) coding / doing 3-d modelling / preparing presentations / writing reports / writing novels / editing video / wasting time in a splendiferous number of YouTubeFacebookTwitterish ways instead of sitting in a cool, quieter darkened office using a full-sized keyboard, a mouse and a 24" screen. Except we won't. The PC might be a laptop, but it will still end up having a desk to sit on, and in many cases plug in mice and monitors as well.
Now PCs will be replaced with smartphones and other pocketable devices? You still have the basic workability issues. I doubt ayone wants to try to prepare a 5000 word report on a technical subject, complete with diagrams and graphs, on any phone they like using the keypad, while I do the same at my desk.
The PC will continue to change, evolve and adapt as new technologies and new applications appear, but it will take a dramatic change equivalent to the introduction of the PC in order to kill it. Perhaps if we develop neural implants, Peter F Hamilton's neural nanonics or some other equivalent, but I suspect that before that the PC will merge more fully into our homes, and will be present in multiple surfaces around the house along with any TV or media playing device.
the evolution is misinterpreted as happening from pc-with-complex-os to a lower-scale-device,
rather it is from open, accessible, modifyiable operating systems and applications (i.e: a machine where you can both play, develop and tweak) to closed platforms where the apps are chosed before hand, the operating systems are more closed to tinkering/configuration
and where the vendor has more control over what the user sees and does with his device
anyone not agreeing with me can bend and continue keeping his head inside his lower back ring
Oh I can see it now... typing my 25 page graduate-school level papers into a cell phone, or even better, using "Voice recogntion" technology. I'm sure that I'll get more than a few strange looks down at the coffee shop as I sit there reciting my paper verbatim into a microphone.
Yes, and then I am going to trade in my dual monitor video editing rig and do the same thing on a two inch screen. Yes, I'm sure my clients will love the results.
not everyone is enamored with the tiny screens of the smartphones! Not everyone has to haul around a laptop to survive each day! Not everyone needs to be "connected" to their friends and family 24/7! Put the computers and cellphones down and go out and "live" your life!