The 'PC is dead' statement is one of the unfortunately regular stupid statements that come out of this industry. I own a smartphone and a tablet. But where do I do my work? On my desktop or, when I am travelling, my laptop. I am less than thrilled about a tablet that won't run my current software and has a keyboard that is close to useless. And let's not forget that small problem of moving data on and off the thing which requires... a desktop or laptop. And the smartphone's singular advantage is its portability. It is however not a device you'd do actual work on.
The PC has a very long way to go and is far from dead. I have dual 22" monitors and an i7 processor while heaps of ram and hard disk. How is a tablet ever going to compare? It reminds me a lot of the disk-less workstations that were going to take over some years ago. Did anyone ever actually use one? Or the machines where all software was to be downloaded from the internet everytime you wanted to use it? Our industry is well-known for innovation. It is not well-known for prediction. In fact, it is very poor at it. -----Original Message----- From: ProFox [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ken Dibble Sent: Friday, 26 October 2012 10:32 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [NF] Sony Tablet S >I think the phenomenal growth of the desktop, year-over-year, is dead. >I think a lot of adults, teens and kids who keyboard all day are going >to use voice, gestures and touch to surf, watch cat videos, tweet, >facebook (yes, it's been verbized), read ebooks, buy stuff on Amazon, >etc. The era of desktop computers for home is going to dwindle. Gamers >will still want souped-up boxes. A lot of travelling workers can use >tablets. A lot of non-intensive data entry (checking off items on a >list) are going to move from clipboards and printouts and laptops and >specialty handhelds to tablets. > >Pads are going to replace a LOT of machines over the next decade. I'm >guessing Apple, Android, W-eight, Win, Place and Show, but it's a horse >race, so you never can tell... It's not the same as saying "desktops and keyboards are dead". Dead is what Edison wax cylinder recordings and dial telephones (but not POTS phone service) are. Real keyboards that provide tactile feedback and allow touch typing are, and always will be, irreplaceable for many types of data entry. Desktops are cheaper, faster, last longer and are easier to maintain than laptops--and cannot be lost on the bus or dropped into toilets--and will therefore be essential to the budgets of many organizations. They will never be "dead". They won't be universal, but they will be much more common for business productivity purposes than, say, vinyl LPs are for music reproduction purposes are. And just as is now occurring with vinyl, which was almost killed off by CDs, eventually a lot of people who mindlessly rushed to cell phones, pads and laptops and expected those devices to provide a quality platform for business purposes will return to the desktop because it is BETTER than those crappy toys. Actually, I think it was something like 15 years ago when I first said, "Computers, being general purpose devices, are irreducibly complex. If your mind is not also complex, you are unsuited to use a computer, and would be better off with several separate digital devices to play your music, watch your TV, determine the time of day, send your email, and surf your internet." But the diversification of increasingly specialized digital devices will not kill off the general purpose desktop. And therefore the desktop computer and tactile keyboard are not now, and never will be, dead. And any hardware vendor who expects to make a living by serving the business world (as opposed to the home market) and bets on the desktop and keyboard being dead is going to lose her shirt. And no decaf, ever. Might as well drink camomille tea. Ken Dibble www.stic-cil.org [excessive quoting removed by server] _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/[email protected] ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
