Pole on Future of PC From Computer World

I laughed when I first opened this. I was expecting an impaled computer or a stripper wearing IDE cables.

Pole
Poll

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Is this IBM guy from Poland?

The PC is not dead, tablets have their use and will change the way people use the internet and will mean less people will have PCs, but the sort of person who will use tablets is probably not our target market anyway. I am still servicing Windows XP machines and people still want to hang onto them.
 
I do think that as time progresses we will see an increase in laptop repairs, decrease in desktop repairs, and prehaps start to see people coming in with tablets.

It doesn't mean that the computer repair industry is going away, just that it'll be evolving to meet the repair needs of today's and tomorrow's technology.
 
I do think that as time progresses we will see an increase in laptop repairs, decrease in desktop repairs, and prehaps start to see people coming in with tablets.
It doesn't mean that the computer repair industry is going away, just that it'll be evolving to meet the repair needs of today's and tomorrow's technology.

+1 That's the key to survival, the companies that resist change and cant adapt to the ever changing market and economy will be the ones who go under.
 
Is this IBM guy from Poland?

The PC is not dead, tablets have their use and will change the way people use the internet and will mean less people will have PCs, but the sort of person who will use tablets is probably not our target market anyway. I am still servicing Windows XP machines and people still want to hang onto them.
Why pick on Poland? I was there in the mid-90s for quite a while and they had a booming tech industry back then. Actually, still on the upswing from leaving communism, they had a booming _fillintheblank_ industry.
 
We beat this horse to death in a prior thread (End of the Windows PC is Near) but it is worth re-posting as this is a game-changing topic.

  • Moore's Law shows that CPU power of the tablet/smart phone will be very high within 5 years
  • We will be able to use an Android/iOS tablet/smart phone with a full-size 24" LCD, keyboard and mouse within 5 years (yes - just like a desktop or laptop PC - THIS IS HUGE)
  • Broadband speeds of tablets/smart phones will exceed 10 Mbps up/down within 5 years (my T-Mobile 4G phone currently runs 5 to 8 Mbps down and 2 to 4 Mbps up and it does WiFi hotspot right out of the box)
  • Software companies have and are creating "parallel apps" for everything we currently have on the traditional Desktop PC (MS Office, ACAD, QuickBooks, etc). Early on there may be some bumps in the road but maturity will bring very good quality Apps such as Quicken and QuickBooks to the tablet/smart phone.
  • You can already print from a tablet/smart phone to your local printer (ePrint)
  • All its data & apps are stored in a cloud of networked servers (simple recovery). Heard of iCloud yet? That announcement is huge and everyone is moving to it. Mark my words.
  • All the Apps are being managed and sold through "Corporate Marketplaces" and thus they are very successful at stemming virus transmission to your tablet/smart phone
As these technologies merge and mature we will see a steep decline in the "traditional PC" as we know it (Win XP, Win Vista, Win 7). You will be able to use your tablet/smart phone just like a traditional PC. We will see a steep decline in calls for virus removal, broken hard disks, corrupt registries (Android and iOS do not have them), and fried motherboards/power supplies. You can reload a corrupt App in about 1 minute and if the OS needs a reload (in that unlikely event) you just hold down 3 buttons and poof ... a hard reset ... and it is just like new out of the box. All your Apps and data are simply reloaded from your iCloud account. End users can do all that without me.

Don't think this is transition happening? You should take a look at Windows 8. Even Microsoft is moving to the tablet/smart phone platform (hopefully not too late). And Microsoft is working very hard at transitioning the MS Office platform to tablet/smart phone platform right now. Office is their biggest profit maker right now and they do not want to lose that in the transition to the table/smart phone. The big question is will Windows 8 be as big a resource/conflict pig as Windows XP/Vista/7 are today. If it is more like Android/iOS (fault-tolerant) our customers are far less likely to need us.

There will be a day when the demand for our services to maintain the "typical PC" will be severely reduced. Android, iOS and Windows 8 will likely be significantly more fault-tolerant than the operating systems we work on today.

The only tablets/smart phones I have been requested to work on were to replace broken digitizers/LCD screens and let me tell you those are a PITA to work on and that business is far and few between.

The tablet/smart phone of the not-to-distant future will have enough CPU power, ease of use (full sized LCD, keyboard and mouse), broadband connectivity, data/App redundancy, and functionality to replace a significant number of installed traditional desktop PC's world-wide. This will impact our business.
 
Yes while smart phones will be able to work like our current desktops or laptops in a number of years from now.
I see those devices being used as travel versions to our bigger devices at home/office at the time.
In 5 years, if your smartphone can be plugged into a 24" monitor and be used much like a current desktop. Would you use that at home/office or would you at that time, like to use my then current "desktop" with 16 cores, 32 gigs ram, etc.....
 
... In 5 years, if your smartphone can be plugged into a 24" monitor and be used much like a current desktop. Would you use that at home/office or would you at that time, like to use my then current "desktop" with 16 cores, 32 gigs ram, etc.....
The marketplace will determine that answer for us. In other words, we will see a higher instance of smart phones connected to 24" LCD's in the future due to them being inventoried for us by HTC, Motorola, Apple, Samsung, etc. Convenience will win (fast enough, ease of use, apps for everything you need, all your photos, music and e-mail are in iCloud, and doesn't need a computer repair tech for anything). That will drive these types of devices into the hands of the masses at very high rates if hardware/software manufacturers continue in the direction they are headed. There is nothing blocking this technology from evolving and this is the direction all the manufacturers are all going.

Will you still be able to have a desktop PC? Of course. But the traditional PC is dying. Just ask Dell, HP, Microsoft, etc. They are actively planning for traditional PC obsolescence now (hence Windows 8 - its primary target is the tablet/smart phone).
 
The first "shot across the bow" of the demise of the traditional desktop PC:

The RedFly™ Vision

Imagine a day when you only need one computer, one set of applications, and one centralized (or cloud-based) secure location for data storage - all in a smartphone device continuously connected at broadband speeds to the Internet. That day is coming sooner than you think; and for many members of the mobile workforce, it's already here.

Today's smartphones are just as powerful as laptops from just a few years ago giving the mobile workforce enough horsepower to productively run mobile versions of critical applications. Native mobile OS application developers and web-based Software as a Service (SaaS) providers are stepping up to fill demand as evidenced by Salesforce, Sybase, Oracle, SAP, Citrix, etc. all moving to offer mobile applications and/or open up their back ends to the mobile workforce in some fashion.

Will you be running Photoshop or editing movies on your smartphone anytime soon? Don't hold your breath. However, in the very near future, as smartphone CPUs get faster and mobile operating systems mature, it will be entirely feasible for consumers and the mobile workforce to use their smartphones as their only computers.
 
Fundamental Flaw in Thinking?

I almost hate to post on this topic but here goes...

There is perhapse one fundamental flaw with the idea that the PC as we know it will go away and that is that all the "indications" are based on current sales of PCs compared to the past versus sales of Tablets now.

So the fundamental flaw is this... current sales of PC's are not a true indicator of what the future will hold as far as service goes. The reason is quite simple....

-- There are a vast number of computers (particularly in homes) that are under 2 to 3 years old.
-- Computers are powerful enough for people to keep for longer.
-- Because they are so powerful people don't need a new one and can opt to get it fixed (Good for Us)
-- Since people can keep their computer longer they are buying tablets and other devices in place of computer at this point in time.

Now.... sales of tablets and other gadgets ARE a great indicator of what we need to prepare for. With this in mind I truly think that we are going to be headed in a direction of a big wave of repairs on laptops, and desktops in the coming years to service all the computers that have already been sold... and following that a wave of "device" repairs. The repair service industry lags behind the sales.

But.... the real discussion we should be having is not what weather the PC repair business is going away... but rather what services are going to be needed as people get these new gadgets. What services can we offer to allow people to take full advantage of the convergance of Cell Phone, PC's, and Tablets? What services will be needed to get people switched to 100% tablet use if they choose to go that route? What type of service is out there that we have not even though of yet?

So lets go that direction on this topic rather than debate the death of PC Repair.
 
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