They are a little too big and Hot for small mobile devices.
Gaming Consoles are still pretty weak.
Those tablets cannot be made compliant with govt security regulations, so good luck.
They want everyone to go to a cloud based model where you pay for the software monthly. I’m using Microsoft CRM like that, where they routinely overcharge me.
I don’t think Microsoft is quite done yet. I’m not prepared to eulogize the company just yet.
But they do have some work cut out for it.
We lost our internet access five months ago. I used to spend most of my time at home on the computer. I even created some videos for Youtube using some excellent Adobe software.
Since I still played a game called “Command and Conquer” from time to time I left the computer on 24/7. But I turned it off one day because I hadn’t used it in a week.
It went four months before I got the urge to play the game and I turned the thing on.
I now realize that if you take away the internet and games, There is very little reason to have a home computer, beyond doing your taxes and a few other minor things.
I say this as a person who has been in IT since 1983 and I have built all my own computers since my first 486 with a 250 mb hard drive and windows 3.1.
SO says the man who completely missed this coming. I’m not sure I’d put much stock in his opinion.
My own vision of the future is an entirely modular computer system that is cumulative. That is, the computer begins with a small module about the size of a cell phone. By itself it can perform a bunch of functions.
Add a second, different type of module to it, and it becomes much more powerful, and able to do many other things. As you keep adding different modules, it becomes more and more functional.
The group of modules can also to some extent work while physically apart from each other, via Wifi, or plug into ever larger systems, such as cars, business mainframes, whatever.
PCs and laptops aren’t going anywhere. Tablets are fine for higher level corporate weasels who don’t have to perform much real work that requires a laptop or PC. Try using a small tablet to effectively perform the tasks of say a systems analyst, software developer or even an administrative assistant. The need to type and input data hasn’t gone away. If you only work with one or two documents at a time or you don’t need to do any high intensity processing work then spend all that money on a tablet.
I work in a virtual home office and have 3 computers. 2 desktop PC’s and a laptop. HATE HATE HATE laptops and small systems. Love the big screen, ergo keyboards, trackball mouse, voip phone system.
I wish EVERYTHING was wireless though. The rats nest of wires and power strips behind my desk is disgusting.
If all you do with a computer is read email, surf the web, and read facebook and twitter, well, yeah.
But if you want to do any serious work, like software development, financial analysis, circuit design, medicine, video processing, audio processing, CAD/CAM, real-time processing, astral or nuclear physics development, or chemical engineering, you will need a big screen with high resolution, lots of CPU power, terabytes of local storage, multi-gigabytes of memory, and a honkin’ power supply to drive it all.
None of these things is available in any hand-held device of which I am aware.
I see the typical non-technical PC morphing into the hand-held appliance, and the high-end PC morphing into the workstation.
But the PC, per-se, is not going away, and Microsoft, which supports serious working applications in all the abovementioned fields, isn’t going away, either.
Yeah: Linux Boxes.
PCs aren’t done if you want to do actual WORK - documents, spreadsheets, etc. Tablets and phones are nice for viewing data, but almost useless for manipulating it.
Ipads are fine for those who like them.
I first got involved with computers because I wanted a word processor. If you do a lot of writing, it’s great to have a machine that enables you to make corrections and additions without having to type the whole damned thing over six or seven times.
Then I got involved in the internet.
Frankly, I think an iPad is kind of a toy. It’s biggest advantage is that you can pull it out of your pocket anywhere. But the screen is tiny and the lack of a real keyboard makes it completely unsuited to writing anything significant.
I suspect it’s mostly, “Hi, like, How R U?” Sure, you can do serious stuff, but it’s a LOT harder.
He’s right, the PC in most homes will go the way of the dinosaur. Tablets, and Phones and networked devices make them mostly obsolete for what MOST folks use their PC’s for.
They will remain for folks who do hard core things like softwared development and the like, but in most homes, the PC will slowly fade away, like the rotary phone.
Tablets need to get a bit more powerful before that happens. But it's not far away. The Asus Transformer Prime for instance has 5 processors, a quad core CPU and a graphics accelerator. It has HDMI out so you can hook it to a big 1920x1080 monitor. You can use external keyboards and a mouse if you wish. It has two cams, a 1080p rear cam and a 720p front cam. The 10.1" screen is so bright you can read it in full direct sunlight. That's a lot of ability for just 500 dollars. If it had a 1920x1080 LCD or even better, an Iris quality display it would kill the iPad.
The Prime would be able to displace my desktop machine if I could run multiple operating systems on it. I need Linux and Windows7. An easy way to plop a new graphics processor with hundreds of fast cores down next to it is also a must.
But those things are easily possible...and when they arrive the PC will be truly dead.
As I still have my old Commodore computer hooked up in a spare room, I’m probably not quite part of the post-PC world. :-)
A sizeable market segment will still want large monitors and full-size keyboards. Whatever CPU I may use, it just won’t have MicroSnot on it.
Read Tonight BTTT!