{"id":7791,"date":"2012-10-26T08:26:57","date_gmt":"2012-10-25T22:26:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/knowledgetoday\/?p=7791"},"modified":"2012-10-26T08:27:16","modified_gmt":"2012-10-25T22:27:16","slug":"pc-a-gonner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/BTOpinion\/blog\/2012\/10\/pc-a-gonner\/","title":{"rendered":"Has the \u2018Death of the PC\u2019 been greatly exaggerated?"},"content":{"rendered":"

From the\u00a0Knowledge@Wharton today\u00a0blog<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Skyrocketing sales of tablets and mobile devices have hinted at the notion that desktop and laptop PCs \u2014 once the staple for home computing \u2014 are beginning to collect dust in many households. And now, the numbers are starting to show that: Last week, Microsoft, a company whose business depends heavily on sales of PCs and related software, announced that its first-quarter net income dropped by 22%<\/a>, with revenue down 8% from a year before. That followed an earlier report by research firm IDC that global PC shipments fell by 8.6% in the last quarter.<\/p>\n

For many observers, such data suggest that the \u201cdeath of the PC\u201d is imminent. To get some perspective on that grim outlook, KnowledgeToday<\/em> asked three Wharton faculty members if they envisioned a time when the humble personal computer as we know it will no longer exist.<\/p>\n

Peter Fader<\/strong><\/a>, professor of Marketing:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Declining earnings at Microsoft are one thing \u2014 they are now facing viable competitors when it comes to operating systems and office tools, so that\u2019s all part of the natural ebb and flow of competing firms. But I don\u2019t see any signs of a declining market for PCs.\u00a0Okay, maybe the forms are changing, but I view a tablet plus optional keyboard as a PC.\u00a0Maybe a smartphone is different, but anything with a screen that is frequently operated with a two-handed keyboard is a PC in my book, and that seems to be a very healthy growing market.<\/p>\n

I predict that the forms will continue to evolve \u2014 we ain\u2019t seen nothing yet \u2014 but for the foreseeable future, I see strong demand for a device that does the kinds of things that a PC currently does. Microsoft may continue to fade away, and even the mighty Apple will fall, but that kind of device has a very healthy future.<\/p>\n

Eric K. Clemons<\/strong><\/a>, professor of operations and information management:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cDeath of the PC\u201d is like death of the mainframe: Neither is likely to occur, and, indeed, the move to the cloud has made \u201cbig iron\u201d [mainframes and servers] more important as a share of global computing, rather than less important. The PC serves a function. Sometimes I do not want to rely on the Internet, as when I am at 37,000 feet. Sometimes I do not want to rely on the cloud, as when I am working on a first draft of a legal opinion. Where we do our computing has for a decade or more been determined by telecom speed, local PC processor speed, need for storage and local PC storage capacity, software costs, and the need for privacy and security. The balance will keep changing. [The young] \u201cdigerati\u201d will continue to mock old guys who write coherent emails on laptops instead of sending short tweets from an iPhone. Both smartphones and tablets will have a place, but so will laptops and desktop PCs.<\/p>\n

Daniel A. Levinthal<\/strong><\/a>, professor of management:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Technologies, even ones that suffer an enormous degree of substitution, tend to survive in particular niche applications. Indeed, while the volumes will shrink, so will competition, and modest margins over modest volumes can be earned.<\/p>\n

Also, the definition of the distinct category of \u201cPC\u201d may be (or is getting) a bit blurred. In what ways are the new Microsoft devices PCs or not PCs? Is the definition a function of the nature of the operating system? What fraction of processing is done on the machine versus (via an app) on a server? Is it a super narrow definition which implies a microprocessor made by Intel and operating system by Microsoft?<\/p>\n

This post was previously posted in Knowledge@Wharton<\/a> today blog: Has the \u2018Death of the PC\u2019 Been Greatly Exaggerated?<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From the\u00a0Knowledge@Wharton today\u00a0blog. Skyrocketing sales of tablets and mobile devices have hinted at the notion that desktop and laptop PCs \u2014 once the staple for home computing \u2014 are beginning to collect dust in many households. And now, the numbers are starting to show that: Last week, Microsoft, a company whose business depends heavily on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":336,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12668,64],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-knowledge-today","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/BTOpinion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/BTOpinion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/BTOpinion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/BTOpinion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/336"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/BTOpinion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7791"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/BTOpinion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7791\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7794,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/BTOpinion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7791\/revisions\/7794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/BTOpinion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/BTOpinion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/BTOpinion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}