Tablets like the TouchPad are obviously here to stay, but will they kill the PC and make it disappear from our lives?
Nope! Its probably gonna be with us for longer than any of the so-called visionaries can imagine. (Though tablets will get much better in the long run at creating content... one of the PC's fortes.)
Sure, IBM saw some kind of handwriting on the wall several years ago and dumped their PC business on Lenovo. Sure, HP, in its current stupor, is mulling dumping their PC group. But this kind of thought and vision is taking place kinda way up in the business stratosphere.
So what's happening in the dens, basements and garages of the world? People are clinging to the PC in its many iterations of the past 20+ years. The PC lives on and on and on...
How do I know?
First off, I'm generally "progressive" with technology, but I do find myself nursing along a 2003 vintage mini-tower PC -- holding my data going back to 1993 -- that has been upgraded from XP to Vista to Win 7. Its final retirement has been deferred countless times. Plus, along with my HP TP, Win7 laptop, and Pre2 smartphone, I'm holding on to a fleet of PDA's, laptops, and netbooks (and related software) in various stages of semi-retirement, ready to jump back into the game at a moment's notice.
Secondly, and more importantly, last week I had an experience that brought me back to earth vis a vis the actual penetration of newer technology into those dens, basements, and garages I mentioned earlier. A friend told me that her husband had a computer that refused to boot. I naturally offered to assist in reviving the beast. What I found was a bit of a shocker...
The fella uses three PC's in his business and they range from one that is vintage 2000+ to two that are 1995-ish. The older ones actually date back to when he started to computerize his work in the mid-90's... which was the last time I chatted with him!
Why hasn't he done more updating along the way? There are probably a bunch of reasons, but the main one is that the older PC's support older equipment he still uses in his business today and has no need to update at this point in his life.
Now, just imagine how many times this type of scenario is repeated across the country and around the world!
The PC lives on and on and on...
Follow me on Twitter... @rnolan1087
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