Reports of the death of the PC are greatly exaggerated

A good article from the UK's The Guardian newspaper. "Tablets may be selling like hot cakes but there will always be a place – and a market – for the personal computer"

I do agree with the writer of the piece when he says "there will always be a place – and a market – for the personal computer". The readers comments section is also worth reading.

Reports of the death of the PC are greatly exaggerated | Technology | The Observer

My username is BillWindows, I've been fighting Apple Fanboys for years on various forums, but the hordes keep growing. While Mac hasn't increased much, IOS has gone berserk.
Apple is building IOS into Mac, a lot of people using IOS now will cross over to Mac. Also the iPad is just selling like crazy as is the iPhone.
While I don't think the death of the PC is on the near Horizon, times are changing quickly, and Microsoft needs to be part of that change. I've even crossed over to the darkside myself and ordered the New iPad.
I'll always be a PC and Windows person, but Microsoft really, really needs to get this right.

BillWindows said:

My username is BillWindows, I've been fighting Apple Fanboys for years on various forums, but the hordes keep growing. While Mac hasn't increased much, IOS has gone berserk.
Apple is building IOS into Mac, a lot of people using IOS now will cross over to Mac. Also the iPad is just selling like crazy as is the iPhone.
While I don't think the death of the PC is on the near Horizon, times are changing quickly, and Microsoft needs to be part of that change. I've even crossed over to the darkside myself and ordered the New iPad.
I'll always be a PC and Windows person, but Microsoft really, really needs to get this right.

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This is true. I also have been fighting against the hordes of iSheep and the deranged android user. Though the mac os market share has gone no where, iOS is everywhere. Elements of iOS will actually be put into the next release of mac os.

But after mulling this over, the desktop is dying. Literally, of the couple dozen installs of Windows 7 I've done on PCs, only a few were desktops. These days, people prefer buying laptops, even if the cost is higher and even if they don't go mobile enough to truly justify one. Even then, with tablets and iOS, even the laptops are kind of going on the wayside by the slightest. I think the touch input is what is really killing the flair of a PC. Touch is natural, it makes the user feel like they're interacting DIRECTLY with the device, not just simply using the PC's input device to control a mouse pointer.

Times be a-changing. Two years ago, I built my desktop to have four 3.5" hard drive bays with two 2.5" bays for a laptop drive. In those two years, I've used just those two hard drive bays up the butt! I'm in the process of rebuilding said puter to host two more laptop drive bays externally. Now, with the tablet surge that I hope to see Windows 8 bring, I might actually need to deal with miniSATA SSDs and even smaller hard drives. Microsoft MUST get this right to get Windows 8 out there and TRULY get the word spread out and REALLY advertise it.

I've probably built my last computer based on the ATX motherboard, I'm using mainly ITX form factor now. I dont use DVD drives much anymore, I dont put them in my new computers, I just use an external drive. I'm keeping hdd's smaller in capacity and use two NAS wirelessly to keep most of my stuff on, especially music and movies, backups etc.

I'm sick of the big powerfull beasts I used to build and now because smaller more power efficient chips etc can do nearly as much as the beasts, I'm building smaller and smaller computers. When the new Ivy Bridge chips come out, I'll build a couple more and that will do me for a while. I love the SSD's they add a good two years onto the life of a computer.

I personally don't care who manufacturers the device or Operating System I use, I simply use the tool best suited for the purpose. If people choose to use something just because it's from company x or because it's the latest fad, that's their problem. As I posted in another thread, I sincerely believe the desktop PC isn't going anywhere, any time soon. It will continue to evolve but the basic concept cannot, for the foreseeable future, be replaced by a hand held device, particularly in isolation.

I personally don't care who manufacturers the device or Operating System I use, I simply use the tool best suited for the purpose. If people choose to use something just because it's from company x or because it's the latest fad, that's their problem

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Thats the way I feel, especially as I build my own computers, which is the absolute reason I want to see MS succeed. Problem is not everyone feels like we do, handheld devices are all the rage, even smartphones are quite capable of doing simple computing tasks. Even Microsoft is now painfully aware of whats going on, and were a little bit slow to react. They are throwing everything they can into making their Windows phone popular while they are building Windows 8 for tablets.

The future is already here and gaining momentum fast, this year is probably going to be the most exciting in computer history for a long time, and I'm liking it.

BillWindows said:

I personally don't care who manufacturers the device or Operating System I use, I simply use the tool best suited for the purpose. If people choose to use something just because it's from company x or because it's the latest fad, that's their problem

Click to expand...

Thats the way I feel, especially as I build my own computers, which is the absolute reason I want to see MS succeed. Problem is not everyone feels like we do, handheld devices are all the rage, even smartphones are quite capable of doing simple computing tasks. Even Microsoft is now painfully aware of whats going on, and were a little bit slow to react. They are throwing everything they can into making their Windows phone popular while they are building Windows 8 for tablets.

The future is already here and gaining momentum fast, this year is probably going to be the most exciting in computer history for a long time, and I'm liking it.

Click to expand...

I think most folks do want to see MS succeed in what they do. But there are doubters (including me) about the wisdom of releasing the Metro UI onto non touch screens. I've used a MAC on the odd occasion and sure it works fine but does it do anything better than Windows. In some areas yes it does and in others MS is way out in front. So I cannot see any reason for myself to pay a $$$ premium simply for the badge.

Unfortunately Apple has become just another fashion accessory. Read a news report about a couple that had started queuing outside an Apple store 4 days before the launch of iPad3 (or whatever it's going to be called). That's the mentality that MS is up against and the way they treat their customers is beyond belief at times. Look at what they said when there were problems with the iPhone - kept on dropping calls. Their initial response was that users were holding the phone incorrectly. Oh please, just how are you meant to hold a phone!!

So it's in everyone's interests for MS to make a success of Win8 across the board. I think we just disagree as to the best way to achieve that. But time will tell.

I quite like the Metro UI, but I'm starting to understand other people's problems with it. I really hope they listen to people's complaints and come up with a way to at least maybe let individuals put it aside if they want to. I think that what they are doing now is okay, because it forces people to think differently by booting into Metro.

I'm also suddenly starting to realize that maybe Apple's upward momentum is a good thing by making MS, Intel and the OEM's work harder to bring out excellent products, have a look at the rise of the Ultrabooks and Intels foray into the mobile market. Like I said before this is an exciting time and maybe we have Apple to thank for that.