The End of the Windows PC is Near

[BienTek]

Until we find a better way to transfer thoughts en-masse into the digital realm than a KEYBOARD, I doubt smartphones of any sort will be taking "over" the Windows space.

... but the keyboard/monitor will act as a dumb terminal for your smart phone to connect to. This is the point that Wheelie has been hammering on.

 

[Ccomp5950]

Smartphones are a COMPLIMENT to a WINDOWS computer world and it will be a long time before this changes. You don't just reverse 15+ years of growth overnight in the tech industry.

Perhaps the Horse-Drawn-Carriage industry and Buggy-whip industry as made obsolete by the automobile may have a word with you?

Give it time, something will replace the PC, and when it does you will either adapt or go out of business.

 

[C0ldf1re]

... The writing is on the wall... Ultimately ... the cell phone will be as powerful as today's desktop sooner rather than later. When they fully develop the smart phone with a proper docking station (i.e. full sized keyboard, mouse and 23" LCD display) our business as we know it know is toast. Will there be PC's around to work on?...

1. Anything users can touch, they'll break. Everything will tend to be cheap enough to be disposable, but making it all work together again will still be a job.

2. Remember how long it took for "legacy" mainframes to be replaced. (They are still going.)

3. It is the software that users actually use for business. They get locked into software by accumulation of data, and the expense of learning. So they will be locked into processors that run Windows software.

 

[Wheelie]

Competition is heating up to bring faster processors and lower power consumption to mobile devices:

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Intel's new 3-D chips: A new level in the mobile fight

"Intel's scientists and engineers have once again reinvented the transistor, this time utilizing the third dimension," Intel CEO Paul Otellini said in a press release. "Amazing, world-shaping devices will be created from this capability as we advance Moore's Law into new realms."

"Ivy Bridge is promising -- Intel says its new transistors will provide up to a 37% performance increase and consume less than half the power than their 2-D counterparts. The company also says the 3-D transistors will be ideal for use in small handheld devices since they use less electricity."

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Competition is heating up to bring higher and higher broadband speeds to mobile networks

Companies working feverishly to connect smart phones to your keyboard, mouse, and 24" LCD

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Will these things kill the desktop PC? No. But it will substantially reduce the number of installed PC's making competition in our business higher and repair costs lower. Homes in my area will have only 1 PC (if any) instead of 2 or 3. Tablets will darn near kill the laptop (half my business is laptops). It will also give rise to the Android OS as a real and formidable competitor to the Microsoft Windows OS.

It is all about convenience and cost. It will be so convenient to carry around your PC in your pocket while having the horsepower to work on graphics images or large spreadsheets. It will marry up instantly to a full sized keyboard, mouse and 24" LCD monitor. It has built-in 10 Mbps broadband speeds. It has built in HD movie camera and 10 Mpixel camera with flash. No, or very little, repair costs since you can simply hard reboot to fix viruses or other glitches. Backups are a breeze over your LAN or to the cloud.

What is not to like about it? (I could lose much of my market share in my current job)

.

 

[ComputerRepublic]

Smart phones are becoming more and more popular. They already have the capability to do most things a PC can do, and they are continually getting better.

However, this is not something to be concerned about. With new technologies come new opportunities to expand and grow your business. If you wisely capitalize on this shift in technology, you can likely make a lot of money in the future. Change isn't something to be afraid of; it's something you should welcome and embrace. Change is what levels the playing field and brings in opportunities to overtake your competitors.

 

[anth]

Competition is heating up to bring faster processors and lower power consumption to mobile devices:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Intel's new 3-D chips: A new level in the mobile fight

"Intel's scientists and engineers have once again reinvented the transistor, this time utilizing the third dimension," Intel CEO Paul Otellini said in a press release. "Amazing, world-shaping devices will be created from this capability as we advance Moore's Law into new realms."

"Ivy Bridge is promising -- Intel says its new transistors will provide up to a 37% performance increase and consume less than half the power than their 2-D counterparts. The company also says the 3-D transistors will be ideal for use in small handheld devices since they use less electricity."

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Competition is heating up to bring higher and higher broadband speeds to mobile networks

Companies working feverishly to connect smart phones to your keyboard, mouse, and 24" LCD

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Will these things kill the desktop PC? No. But it will substantially reduce the number of installed PC's making competition in our business higher and repair costs lower. Homes in my area will have only 1 PC (if any) instead of 2 or 3. Tablets will darn near kill the laptop (half my business is laptops). It will also give rise to the Android OS as a real and formidable competitor to the Microsoft Windows OS.

It is all about convenience and cost. It will be so convenient to carry around your PC in your pocket while having the horsepower to work on graphics images or large spreadsheets. It will marry up instantly to a full sized keyboard, mouse and 24" LCD monitor. It has built-in 10 Mbps broadband speeds. It has built in HD movie camera and 10 Mpixel camera with flash. No, or very little, repair costs since you can simply hard reboot to fix viruses or other glitches. Backups are a breeze over your LAN or to the cloud.

What is not to like about it? (I could lose much of my market share in my current job)

.

A bit illusional and lots of tunnel vision- The sky is falling the sky falling-

Technilogy is always changing and you have to adapt

Go tell grandma that she now has to use a cell phone to look up those new peanut butter cookies recipes, so Dell, HP, Toshiba, Gateway will all be out of business because they cannot sell anymore laptops and desktops? Microsoft will go bankrupt because of the Droid OS?

Instead of getting mad look forward to the new technologies and see how you can grow your business with it, there my not be a virus for Droid OS now but who knows.

Your business needs to grow you need to learn new skills and abilities, the smart shops well stay open and profit from all the new technologies the shops that just we can only work on PC's will fade away. Not that the PC is going anywhere for a long long time.

 

[ATTech]

A bit illusional and lots of tunnel vision- The sky is falling the sky falling-

Technilogy is always changing and you have to adapt

Go tell grandma that she now has to use a cell phone to look up those new peanut butter cookies recipes, so Dell, HP, Toshiba, Gateway will all be out of business because they cannot sell anymore laptops and desktops? Microsoft will go bankrupt because of the Droid OS?

Instead of getting mad look forward to the new technologies and see how you can grow your business with it, there my not be a virus for Droid OS now but who knows.

Your business needs to grow you need to learn new skills and abilities, the smart shops well stay open and profit from all the new technologies the shops that just we can only work on PC's will fade away. Not that the PC is going anywhere for a long long time.

I think you mean delusional.

The quoted post doesn't say it will go away completely, of course Grandma is still going to stay with what she has, but can you make a living helping Grandma get her cookie recipes?

 

[samr2d2]

"Within 5 years the computing power of a smartphone will be nearly equal to today's PC and will connect right up to your keyboard, mouse and 24" LCD."


So in 5 years time, mobile phone technology will be 5 years behind PC technology?

Nice one

 

[KM@ Dave]

How can businesses run on cell phones? How can musicians, lab technicians, scientists and the likes of them run their applications on cell phones????

A-freakin-men. True words spoken. Mobiles, PDAs etc all good for email and quick web access with their all new dual core Processors etc. But the Computer is where pure power comes from, and always will do. I'd like to see manufacturers make a phone that doesn't run out of, and I quote this ugly word... 'Battery'

 

[C0ldf1re]

... I'd like to see manufacturers make a phone that doesn't run out of, and I quote this ugly word... 'Battery'

Well said that gent! Our worries are mitigated a little for now.

 

[otis48]

Don`t think/hope so...

For me it boils do9wn to portability versus performance.I don`t carry a cell around much b/c I want to get away from the damned thing...same thing with web access.When it`s available I can`t resist.
Who know whaty the future hoolds and I`m getting old and set in my ways,so for me, my pc wont be obsolete anytime soon [like the rest of my life]

 

[Wheelie]

PC Makers Are Seeing a Slowdown

"“The PC market continues to be bifurcated,” Léo Apotheker, the H.P. chief executive, said in a conference call with analysts. He added that “even though our consumer PC expectations had been cautious, the steepness of our Q2 decline is greater than what we had anticipated.”

But despite the tight wallets in a slowly recovering economy, shoppers have been eager to buy tablet computers, a market that H.P. will finally enter this summer with its planned release of the TouchPad, a rival to Apple’s dominant iPad.

Analysts attribute some of the weakness in consumer PC sales to the rise of tablets. Overall PC sales declined 1 percent to 3 percent during the first three months of the year, according to slightly different estimates by IDC and Gartner, two market research firms. But they also blamed the economy and a lack of innovation in PCs."
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HP revenue outlook dims as PC sales drop 20%

"The world's largest computer maker startles analysts by scaling back its revenue forecast for the second time in as many quarters. It cites weak demand for desktops and notebooks, manufacturing problems in Japan and growing interest in tablets, a market in which HP has lagged rivals."

 

[vdub12]

PC Makers Are Seeing a Slowdown

"“The PC market continues to be bifurcated,” Léo Apotheker, the H.P. chief executive, said in a conference call with analysts. He added that “even though our consumer PC expectations had been cautious, the steepness of our Q2 decline is greater than what we had anticipated.”

But despite the tight wallets in a slowly recovering economy, shoppers have been eager to buy tablet computers, a market that H.P. will finally enter this summer with its planned release of the TouchPad, a rival to Apple’s dominant iPad.

Analysts attribute some of the weakness in consumer PC sales to the rise of tablets. Overall PC sales declined 1 percent to 3 percent during the first three months of the year, according to slightly different estimates by IDC and Gartner, two market research firms. But they also blamed the economy and a lack of innovation in PCs."
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HP revenue outlook dims as PC sales drop 20%

"The world's largest computer maker startles analysts by scaling back its revenue forecast for the second time in as many quarters. It cites weak demand for desktops and notebooks, manufacturing problems in Japan and growing interest in tablets, a market in which HP has lagged rivals."

Maybe HP is seeing lower sales because there computers suck, lol. Maybe if they would stop ignoring design flaws more people would buy there PC's.

I have noticed my sales have been going up lately for PC's.

 

[SmithFamilyDesigns]

I specifically tell people to avoid hp unless they want to get business grade hardware and for that cost they normally buy one of my computers with a 3 or 5 year warranty.

 

[PCSupportGlasgow]

PC Makers Are Seeing a Slowdown

you could counter against that with Dells figures on the rise announcent


In its earnings report for the first quarter of 2011, Dell announced a sharp jump in profits, partly off the back of strong sales to business.

Even if economies around the world are experiencing hard times, Dell doesn’t seem to have heard about it. The computer giant reported strong figures for the first quarter on Tuesday, exceeding analysts’ expectations. Dell shares jumped in response to the news.

A statement issued by the company reported net income at $945 million or 49 cents a share – that’s a big leap, up from $341 million or 17 cents a share a year earlier. Sales were recorded at just over $15 billion, up almost 1 percent on the same time last year. There may have been an inkling that these figures were going to be good, coming soon after it was announced that the company had retaken the number two position in global PC sales. HP holds the top spot.




Although the last part of the article below shows the trend we all knew was happening.


According to the WSJ, Dell also said that consumer demand for PCs was slow as customers looked more closely at tablets instead. Dell itself has the Inspiron duo and two Streak tablets on the market, though sales have hardly threatened to knock the popular iPad off its perch. The Texas-based company also hopes to release another tablet at some point this year, possibly in September.

Dell’s healthy sales to businesses of products such as servers, storage devices and computers were a big factor in its strong first-quarter results. No doubt the company will be wanting to build on its success in that field over the coming months, and if the economies around the world begin to pick up, it’ll be well placed to do so.



Full article

 

[samr2d2]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/13430506

O2 is trying to restore mobile coverage in parts of London, Kent and East Sussex.

The company says vandals hit one of their east London sites early on Tuesday morning.

O2 put a statement on their website saying: "We've got a problem that means you can't make calls, use the internet, or send texts and emails."

The operator says it's working hard to get services restored and has apologised to customers.

The problems are affecting services on 2G and 3G.

A spokesman said: "Following the theft and vandalism at one of our operational sites in E London, we have been working hard to resume normal mobile service to N and E London, Kent and E Sussex.

"Some affected customers were able to make calls again from 4.30pm, and service across the region is being restored now with a few pockets of no coverage still remaining.

"We are carefully monitoring this throughout the night."

My PC has been doing fine for the past 2 days. Sucks for all those people and businesses that relied on there phones for access doesn't it

 

[ATTech]

My PC has been doing fine for the past 2 days. Sucks for all those people and businesses that relied on there phones for access doesn't it

Redundancy in cellular coverage doesn't exist to the same extent as in the power grid and internet. Eventually, it will, but not today.

 

[maclaptech]

All these news articles are speculation. Some say PC is dead some say it is not. If PC is dead, why is Google coming out with Google Chromebook? Why is Intel looking into spending millions to rejuvenate PCs and 3D chips?

Yes PC market might not be what it used to be, but it will improve with better CPUs (3D), better screens (touchpad), better and more capable operating systems (Win 8 and 9).

 

[Paul Rodgers]

http://arstechnica.com/#!/gadgets/n...ppening-but-not-yet-at-the-expense-of-pcs.ars

This was on ars technica yesterday.

 

[ComputerDave]

How can businesses run on cell phones? How can musicians, lab technicians, scientists and the likes of them run their applications on cell phones????

I agree with you wholeheartedly. I have a pharmacy chain that will be using their server and workstations, with all of their stores linked together, for several years to come. But pharmacist, musicians and lab technicians are a very small piece of our pie. The majority of our business in residential.

I know I was talking with my lead tech today and he finally realized that it had been weeks since he turned on his desktop at home, and the only reason he did was to run Quicken. He's been doing all of his email, research and socializing on his phone. And I asked him, "Wouldn't you agree that this change has taken place rather abruptly", and he agreed that while he used to fire his machine up everyday, that it pretty much came to a screeching halt.