Wow! There are some things that are as predictable as a foggy San Francisco summer. One of those seems to be the inevitable predictions around the doom of the PC. Here is another one just today from CNN:
http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/08/07/the-pc-looks-like-its-dying/?source=linkedin
The really dumb thing about this one is that the data that the claim is based on is so incredibly thin. Unlike the silly article that I debunked last year (from the excellent writer Paul Carr), this one is based on a pretty insignificant downturn in WW PC shipments.
Here's the problem: if you used that criteria, then we're pretty much done with cars. What? Didn't you know? The worldwide car business had a huge downturn a few years back. By this logic, cars are all over. We're doing skateboards from now on folks.
Wait, that isn't true? Crap.
People who don't understand technology, business and the business of technology seem to be very confused about what is happening in the real world where the rest of us work.
There is definately a paradigm shift going on. Web 2.0 and now cloud is changing the way we all work. However, the vast majority of us still work on PC's (running Mac OS, Windows, Linux, whatever). That doesn't seem to be changing anytime soon.
Walk around any business in America and take a look at the folks doing real work. How many information workers do you know who use anything but a PC for their primary workstation? I'm guessing zero.
Not 10% or 1%. ZERO! I defy you to find one information worker who uses anything but a PC for their primary work device.
Until this primary fact changes, all writers who declare PC's dead are officially dead to me.
