The PC is dead. Rising numbers of mobile, lightweight, cloud-centric devices don’t merely represent a change in form factor. Rather, we’re seeing an unprecedented shift of power from end users and software developers on the one hand, to operating system vendors on the other–and even those who keep their PCs are being swept along. This is a little for the better, and much for the worse.
I love how people can make this claim just because some folks switch to other computing platforms. The PC’s were also dead to consoles years back, weren’t they?
I intend to have a PC on my desk for many, many years to come, mostly because I enjoy it as a hobby and for all the flexibility it gives me. I can’t expand a laptop or tablet like I can a desktop. I can add MANY more devices to my desktop as well. For those of us that like to dabble with new technology, there is no better cornerstone than a desktop PC.
The PC also “died” when it became primarily an internet-access terminal back in the 90s, because its use totally transformed. It died like the Obi Wan, only to rise again more powerful than you can imagine. The same thing is happening now. The old computing world is being swept away, and we can be wary of how it’s remade before us, but there’s no reason to fear the future.
I had a very powerful smart phone, a powerful laptop and a powerful desktop. Here is my current usage percentages at home (and I am a “frequent flyer”)
Phone 90%
Laptop 8%
Desktop 2%
I don’t think these numbers are that unusual. My desktop has more transformed into a media server. I use PlayOn – a media aggregation service for Hulu+, ESPN3, Netflix, etc. I watch shows from PlayOn on my TV. However, I also have a Roku, so I don’t even use the Media Server PC that much. I only use it for what isn’t on Roku, like ESPN3.
So, a few years ago I was on that desktop PC for hours and hours. I can’t count how many desktops I have bought.
Now, the odds that I will buy another desktop approach zero. Even my powerful laptop – I am in the process of selling it, and I have replaced it with a less-powerful 6-year-old Dell from a garage sale. The next laptop will probably be a tablet/laptop combo. I may well be an Arm, perhaps running Android or a light-weight Linux.
These numbers are being repeated everywhere.
Can you send me your desktop then? I’ll pay shipping if it is really powerful.
Could always use one at the office, since my place is too cheap to buy a good one. The two laptops I have, while not brand-new, are still only 2-4 years old and are already starting to show signs of failing hardware. These are dell laptops, and I’ve had two far worse laptops than those (from VoodooPC and from HP; ironically HP later bought VoodooPC).
Edited 2011-11-30 23:13 UTC
That’s one of the things I like about laptops from the mid 2000’s. You can get them for next to nothing, and they are so solid. I like business Dells, HP’s and Thinkpads. I up the ram to 2GB, and put big batteries in them. My current, a Dell B130 cost me about $120 after the new RAM (kahlon.com) and 12-volt battery.
Thanks, but I’ll keep quad-core desktop. It makes a good media server, and is my back-up for any home programming. But one day I’ll replace it with something like an Ion2 net-top running Linux. I would prefer an Arm for lower power consumption.
hohoho… i have a 7 year old Dell laptop, which show no signs of hardware failure, and another member of my family has a 2 year old Dell laptop which also is in top shape, I don’t know what you’re trying to say here…
So … you don’t play computer games? Interesting …
I do play some games, but I’m mostly in the Linux world. I support all the Humble Bundle games, but most of them do not have high hardware requirements. I use Desura- basically like Steam, but Mac/Win/Lin. My kids have switched to mostly console gaming.
Except where it counts – at work!
You are correct. I am a programmer, so I use a desktop all day. I do think most support staff could get by easily with thin client.
Misleading title and summary for the article.
Agree. This article is about how appstores are becoming more and more popular.
It’s quite amusing. I don’t think most of those that comment actually read the article…. it may be a social experiment …
The desktop is not going away. Ever. There’s been articles proclaiming it’s death for years and it’s still here. They’re nothing but click bait.
If desktops “died” we’d be left with laptops. In my view laptops are still PCs; usually not a big difference. Electronics makers and software engineers certainly aren’t going to do their hardcore coding on a gaming console or a tablet … ridiculous. Also, there are apparently a lot of physical security issues related to laptops, though I don’t know how big organizations handle this (just usually not very well, haha).
However, laptops go through more wear and tear and are more easily damaged, so this would still be a sad day, especially for people that can use a lot of local power like designers and gamers.
I don’t really believe that will happen; someone will always make a good desktop, even if it is by hacking up a server system to act as a desktop. There are far fewer options for good systems already than there used to be; the death of the Workstation really seems to have happened at all major vendors. Smaller vendors still have offerings for so-called workstations though, as there is and will always be (in the forseeable future) some demand for locally accessible powerful machines.
Your neighbors and friends may not use a desktop, it doesn’t mean you won’t be able to get one.
Next in the news: servers will no longer be necessary, everything can just be served by P2P over your phones and tablets.
Edited 2011-11-30 23:21 UTC
If the PC is dead, how in the world are we going to write code for all of the shiny new cloud-enabled devices that will replace it?
We’ll have to tack on some other terms to Moore’s law to account for the slower productivity time of you having to code everything on a iPad of course. Problem solved.
I’m going all gooey at the thought of stubbing my fingers on a glass screen for eight hours a day.
At least it’ll only be the fingers on one hand at a time though, eh?
The article bewailed the loss of freedom caused by the rise of closed environments and app stores. Apple is the worst offender, says the article.
I have resisted tablets and smart phones for that very reason. If you want freedom and some choice, then one option is what I did: Keep a simple phone and a netbook, preferably one running Linux.
That brings up a second point. As form factors change, so does the type of work that gets done. Phones and tablets are good for quick calendar checks, but poor for inputs. I have been to many meetings where tablet users play with their devices before the meeting starts, but they get put away as the meeting starts. The netbook stays operational, with me banging away, taking notes.
Do I play games? Sure. I also listen to music, go on-line, and read e-books (including Kindle books). The difference is that I also can get work done.
My PC must have forgot to die. I have OpenBSD. I’m still using mail client, terminal emulator, text editor and other stuff. I actually enter internet just for news, wikipedia and minor GitHub management. Oh, and I use Jabber. Not much has changed since 2000, actually.
I also own an Android phone. It’s HTC Magic running custom firmware (EzGingerbread) and a bunch of apps, some of them installed w/o Android Market.
I don’t see the way I’m locked in.
Don’t you know BSD is dead, email is dead, the command line is dead and now the desktop is dead? With all of those combined your system is un-un-un-dead.
nice! i, too, am doing some voodoo like that: linux HTPC, linux media server, pfSense firewall and gateway, linux 4-core desktop, 2 linux laptops… oh, boy how behind the times i am… i still use email and commandline, etc.
oh, and i have a nexus one android (ancient… about 2 years “old”… how can i get by, i can’t figure).
Tablet/Slate/whatever…..just a toy. Until it evolves from a platform that’s chock full of “yeah, buts”, it will be considered as such.
The driver of technology is the business and these things have no place in the corporate environment, other than for road dogs to watch movies on 18 hour flights to Asia, and for whiny overpaid upper-management to do nothing but whip out their e-penis’ at meetings to get the ooh and ahh factor from the not so privileged rank and file.
Just like the console heralded the death of the PC for gaming, the laptop heralded the death of the PC for portability, and the Year of the Linux Desktop heralded the death of Windows; the PC lives on, and thrives.
Long live the PC, I’ll be happily using mine while your shiny touchy piece of junk is EOL’d faster than you can say “profit margin”.
How do you see that? Consoles and Phones shape the future of computers because so much money is made with them via consumers.
How are businesses shaping computers?
Sure, to the same extent that we now have the paperless office.
My office is mostly paperless today. We do get agreements and the like signed on paper but even those we simply scan and shred.
However it is full of PC’s (Mac’s actually).
I think if we had to give up all paper tomorrow that would be doable without a problem; PC’s not so much.
Handheld devices will no more kill the PC than Unix servers killed the mainframe or television killed radio. Obviously there is a shift going on to smaller devices, and there will be some displacement of the PC by these smaller devices. But “the PC is dead”? Silly. There are still many uses where consumers and business users will want real keyboards, large screens, systems on which you can install anything you want, etc.
You can have my desktop when
When someone makes a portable appliance with a full-size keyboard, 24″ screen, and 500W surround sound speakers that can play and record DVDs, edit Nikon RAW image files, and run ArcView and AutoCAD. It should also, obviously, be capable of connecting to a scanner, printer, TI calculator, GPS, and cameras. And I naturally expect it to be assembled with standardized components that are user-upgradeable and user-replaceable.
And do all of that without a monthly service fee or contract.
Until then, there’s no substitute for a desktop computer.
No way to avoid software censorship unless you’re a major OS vendor.
No way to become a major OS vendor unless you have billions of dollars to spend.
The perfect trap.
…the “experts” said Apple was dying…
Now the PC is dying…
Hmmmm….
Oh, you got it. Angry each time someone posts yet another piece on how the PC is dead. Not everything can be done through some dumb terminal, and to hell with everyone who even thinks dev work can be done on a tablet or a phone.
One compromise I’m willing to make: I’m willing to sit in front of a dumb terminal, if the server I’m working on sits 2 feet away and the only cloud I’m seeing is floating over your judgement.
A terminal to cloud processing in my view is also a pc.
If you have such a terminal in your house the device is still a personal computer. It does (or at least predicted to do) precisely the same as a pc but the processing is done in the cloud.
Even if you think my reasoning is flawed it would still be pain to call it anything else but a pc.
PC is short and descriptive.
Imagine saying “honey i’m just going to check my email on the terminal”
That sounds studid.
The press should broaden they definition of what a pc is.
Edited 2011-12-01 12:15 UTC
“The PC is dead.”
Uhm, yeah … sure. Chair is dead too because of the raising number of walking people. Oh, and sane goes to bed, barber shops [you know these filthy little hair trimmers!] and other useless stuff.
Come on, yer pessimistic, always-complaining unfulfilled mesaiahs … get real.
You can’t compare a PC with a smartphone or a tablet. The PC is not going anywhere any soon.
Was this confirmed by Netcraft ?
Because these tablets are so easy to use and have less maintenance overhead. First the consumers are shifting to these devices, then workers get optimized interfaces for these devices. All there is left are software developers. Now that everyone is divided, corporations can start charging for getting access to these “professional” devices. PCs are cheap because of the mass production. Welcome to the future !
from my view it helps to define what were talking about exactly as being dead.The PC began life as a break from the computational devices prevelent at the time(early 70-80) promising the end user at home the power and flexibility to do all that the massive behemoths of the time could do on his humble home computer.hence the PERSONAL computer as opposed to SHARED computer(time shared etc).the way the wind is blowing id have to agree that PCs as in PERSONAL computers are on the way out for most users . when apps web and mobile become the preferred method of using computers for most users and cloud storage is the preferred solution for data storage the computer is not personal anymore .its back to the era where you have a dumb terminal that hooks up to a more powerful backend that serves the users need.is this necessarily a bad thing? i dont think so it makes sense in some situations where the computaional power you need isnt available at your disposal but the downside is the computer you are using isnt totally under your control anymore leading to situations wgere you have to “jailbreak or root” something you thought you already owned
It’s not so much that the PC is dead so much that consumers are using other devices to do what once belonged only to the realm of the PC. Namely the internet. So the PC may very well be dying in the consumer space.
During the 2nd and 3rd generation of video game systems everyone was claiming that PC’s (which could also play games) would erase the market for them. This of course never happend. But this whole idea of everything (entertainment, telecommunications, etc.) converging into the PC architecture kept being brought up.
I’ve seen several guys on this site whole still believe in this so called digital convergence. Now of course it’s Smartphones instead of PC’s.
The desktop PC is dead? There’s an entire computer gaming industry and about a billion+ (literally) users who never got the memo.
Not everybody is a teenager glued to their cellphone doing everything but talking on it……..
I think a much more likely scenario is that the UI and feature set will be “dumbed down” on the PC to make it easier for things to be cross platform with other systems.
Example 1: Where do you see 1920×1200 displays these days? You don’t; I suspect it is because consoles don’t support this, so it is easier just to support one format. I really don’t get why, if anyone has some insight I’d love to hear it (used to think it was a limitation of HDMI, but apparently not).
Example 2: UIs in games; Skyrim being the most recent example, where the UIs are clearly designed with the console in mind, and feel awful on the PC.
This is probably just the start of a slow and painful relegation of the PC to being a second class citizen for many apps. For other apps, like design and coding, it will always be the goto choice though.
Not true. I doubt you can run a complex IDE, music editor, graphics editor, audio/video editor on something without a wide screen, unless you want to torture yourself. Of course it’s the question of displaying the info, not of the form factor of the actual computer. And of course games were mentioned here before. Mobile CPUs/GPUs can’t compete with full blown desktop ones. Yet.
Edited 2011-12-01 20:25 UTC
Yeah right just like the mainframe with it’s centralized applications via terminal was dead when PC’s came onto the scene.
Too funny
Edited 2011-12-01 23:26 UTC
Nothing but “BS” you only need to visit a BestBuy or Frys to watch the computers being carried out,they do not look dead to me.
I wouldn’t say the PC is dead, or even in danger of dying. That’s a ridiculous claim. I *do* think it’s fair to say that it’s evolving. That ought to be a given. Personal computers have been in constant evolution as long as they’ve been around. Modern PCs share a lot of fundamental design philosophy with their predecessors, but they’ve changed to accommodate new ideas and metaphors as consumers found out they wanted to do new things.
I don’t think it’s unfair to say that mobile devices have displaced *some* of the traditional PC market by providing a platform that can replicate some of the same functionality that consumers want in a package that’s “good enough” for general purpose use. People buy them to watch videos, surf the web, and do some casual gaming. They’re convenient for this purpose. If it does productive stuff that’s just icing on the cake.
But more than mobile devices, I do think there is a shift in the broader market toward notebook PCs and other all-in-one computers. Most people just aren’t geeks. They generally aren’t interested in learning how to put together a computer. I work with people who couldn’t find a color coded PS/2 port on the broad side of a barn if their “broken” keyboard depended on it. The number of people building custom gaming rigs is actually pretty small compared to the total PC market. Most people will just buy whatever Dell or HP is on sale that week. As long as it does what they want, they’re just not all that concerned with what kind of chip is inside.
So yes, there will continue to be a market for the traditional tower + monitor setup for the foreseeable future. People will continue to need a reliable and powerful platform that has the flexibility to upgrade components. This kind of futureproofing is useful to people who run business software, scientific simulation packages, video and music editing software.
I also think there will be a shift toward simplified consumer oriented computers. I think it’s pretty likely we’ll start to see the lines between PC and internet appliance blur, especially as more and more computers are built into homes, televisions, cars.
They won’t totally displace the workstation, but they may very well get rid of some of the reasons to own one.
These types of comments can be misleading. Do gamers make up the majority of the consumer PC market? Absolutely not. However, that’s not to say there isn’t a substantial PC gaming market with significant profits to be made, which is clearly the case.
When you have roughly 2 billion computer users in the world, even a small handful is a healthy portion. The desktop PC isn’t going anywhere no matter how much some people would like to think otherwise.
PaperLemon is correct here.
I just recently bought a Zotac ZboxHD-ID40-Plus to replace an antiquated HTPC in my lab. I still have 22 other PCs, but after loading out my Zbox with Win7 Ultimate & Ubuntu 10.04-LTS, and doing extensive benchmarking, I gotta say I’m totally pleased with it’s performance.
That said, I hope the PC (x86/x64) never dies, or at least I hope that it keeps evolving for the sake of developers & engineers. I work as a network administrator, professionally, and I run a technical community as an ongoing hobby. At my day job, we’re steadily buying and deploying more PCs, and although I’ve often suggested moving our users to net-top devices like a Zbox or something similar, really I’d rather see our users moved to Destkop Virtualization thin-clients. Unfortunately, this operation is also an all-Microsoft-shop, so desktop virtualization will cost them immensely to do. Being as how I’m the Linux evangelist around here though, I’m always pushing the idea of desktop virtualization using Linux on the back end, which would effectively drop our deployment costs by several million dollars per year, and combined with Wyse Desktop virtualization thin clients, we would eliminate the costs associated with maintaining 3000+ workstations.
Now, in my lab, I utilize a bunch of recycled PCs as servers running Linux, and a few actual servers that are running VMWare ESXi to allow me to run even more servers on the cheap. In some places, on my network, a PC is a perfect fit, be it in the role of workstation, server, or HTPC. In other places though, I’m looking more and more at net-top PCs… but these are still technically PCs.
The Zbox I just picked up uses a dual core processor with hyperthreading (4 logical cores), 2GB RAM, 250GB SATA-II drive, 8 USB ports, a built-in card reader, and A/V out over HDMI. Paired with the 48″ Samsung 1080p screen I use in my lab, this system is perfect. It’s almost entirely quiet, having only 1 low power fan that cools the CPU/GPU combo (Atom D525 + Nvidia ION). While it’s not *quite* as fast as the gaming PC / HTPC that it has replaced (the old system has simply been recycled for other duties), it runs all of the PC games I play quite well. Mostly, I use it for older games like Freelancer, Dawn of War, BattleZone II, and other older PC games. For the newest games, I only buy those for my Xbox360 anyway, because I want to have a static-performance experience with them. As much as I love re-revving an old game on a new gaming PC to watch it scream at 200+FPS, I’m also really loving the lower energy costs, fewer upgrade cycles, and all the time that I’m able to now put at other things aside from maintaining my armada of systems.
Still, the PC… it’ll be dead when they pry it from my cold, dead hands. I’m the very type of person that will keep the PC alive, and I’m not the only one. Locally alone, I know of at least 900 or so people that feel pretty much the same way about it. They love their tablets, but they also love their PCs. Each is used differently.
So, rather than forecasting the doom of the PC, I think the industry needs to wake up to the fact that while production may ramp down some, the demand isn’t going way, its just slimming and refining. Not everyone needs a general purpose PC, much less a top end gaming PC. In those cases, mini-PCs, NetTops, Netbooks, and tablets are very appropriate. But for those of us that do real work on *computers*, the PC going away would be a life-style threatening problem.
How many ethical hackers or system engineers out there would be willing to give up the ability to build custom Linux boxes? Anyone? I don’t think so.
This really sums it up. Desktops, laptops, netbooks, nettops, tablets…they all have their place and the more people integrate computers into every aspect of their lives, the more room there will be for each of these things to exist. Certain tasks require what a desktop can offer that the others cant. Certain tasks require what a laptop can offer that the others cant. Certain tasks require what a…….you get the point. And it’s not going to change any time soon.
I write software too, but I do with a laptop. Not even a fancy quad core, but a Samsung Series 9. I suppose it’s an ultrabook although that’s a silly term in my opinion.
What in the world do programmers need desktops for? I can’t imagine what I’d want with one at work. If I need powerful virtual environments for build or test, that’s what vSphere and a blade rack is for.
However much I like laptops, I plan to always have at least one desktop computer. In the future it might be more of a house server, but it’ll still be powerful hardware stuffed into a big box, probably under a desk.
Maybe Carmack was just being wasteful …
http://www.geek.com/articles/games/john-carmack-coded-quake-on-a-28…
More screen space = more productivity (well, unless you are watching youtube on part of it
)
http://blog.gaborcselle.com/2006/08/more-screen-space-more-producti…
Edited 2011-12-02 07:15 UTC
But I do have a large screen. I plug into a 24″ monitor when at my desk, and there’s a Bluetooth mouse and external keyboard.
Fair enough. It always just seemed a waste to me not to have such a nice screen powered by great hardware, but I am a gamer also. Many games don’t require A#1 graphics, but some do and a lot of people like to have these systems, but these can’t really compete with the # of people that like to have consoles.
If PC gaming did somehow “die”, I’d probably still stick with PC gaming or retro gaming. Hey, I’m getting old by god, so why not
Console platform antics piss me off even more than Apple’s antics, which I’m sorry to say, as I grew up on consoles.
If laptops are ever to actually be basically the same in terms of performance/price ratios as desktops or workstations, then I’d be fine with them for the most part (aside from them being less durable in my experience).
As for programming, I do a lot and I admit laptops are just as good with an external monitor (I don’t use that though).
Where I really like my desktop with 24GB of RAM (aside from playing Skyrim) is for running MATLAB sessions and rendering 3d graphics based on tens of millions of data points. Some laptops may be able to handle that, but I wouldn’t want to risk the $$ on a mobile piece (after having done so too many times already).
Edited 2011-12-02 23:26 UTC
Simple – desktops are cheaper. You only need a laptop if you have a real reason for portability factor (which will cost you). If not – no need to pay extra money for nothing.
Edited 2011-12-02 08:07 UTC
Somewhat / not quite. Entry-level laptops have become very inexpensive – and while one might argue that similarly inexpensive desktops are “more powerful”, cheap laptops seem way into “good, fast enough” area for very many people (most don’t play games, other than Flash, FB, Peggle-likes)
With their economies of scale (already outselling desktops for some time), and greater integration (GPU “in” CPU becoming standard, a solid baseline for software to target), it will only get better for laptops.
Plus, many people seem to like their aesthetics and non-intrusiveness (into room d~A(c)cor, occupied space, etc.), even if portability often isn’t much of a factor.
But what is… hilariously sad, in this thread, is how many people seem to readily jump on “desktop vs. laptop” principled stand of sorts, distinction – one which wasn’t made by the title and summary: laptops ARE PCs.
Reminds me about People’s Front of Judea vs. Judean People’s Front.
And “both” maybe a bit dying after all – at least in comparison to what was meant as a “PC” for a long time, and how that machine now becomes, for many people, essentially just a terminal, going “back” (yes, the protocols – HTTP and such – are a bit different than in the old days, but…). Even music (Spotify) or video (Youtube, Netflix) goes there.
As for development and such – well, that was the domain of workstation (expect similar price premiums?)
Edited 2011-12-08 00:18 UTC