What Will You Do When There Are No More PCs?
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Roger Wright wrote:
What are you doing to prepare for the sea change? Working on new skills, like mobile development, or cloud-based solutions? Are you working on one last killer app that will make you rich enough to retire? Or are you perfecting your burger flipping technique? What's it going to be, and at what point in the process do you plan to exit gracefully and begin your new career?
Drink another Bundy and say fuck it.
Michael Martin Australia "I controlled my laughter and simple said "No,I am very busy,so I can't write any code for you". The moment they heard this all the smiling face turned into a sad looking face and one of them farted. So I had to leave the place as soon as possible." - Mr.Prakash One Fine Saturday. 24/04/2004
There will always be computers as long as we don't go back to the stone age and have no electricity. The programs/applications we use on our phones will be written on computers until we can write them on a phone. That will be when phones have a proper keyboard and a decent display. When a phone have a decent displays and keyboard it will become a computer with a telephone application.
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This article on cnn.com[^] discusses HP's decision to exit the PC business, and predicts that others will follow. The PC we all know and love/hate has been a marginal product line for at least a decade, and I'm surprised that any major manufacturer bothers with it still. It's not possible to operate a business that returns a margin of 2% - 5% and survive for very long. The Wintel platform has had its day, and it's been a good run of 30 years or so, but its era is winding down. The article doesn't make any predictions, but I think the end will come sooner rather than later; that's just the way paradigm shifts work. When it does, people won't be replacing their old PCs with new ones, but will instead be buying prepackaged, integrated tools that just do what they need them to do with a minimum of fuss. What are you doing to prepare for the sea change? Working on new skills, like mobile development, or cloud-based solutions? Are you working on one last killer app that will make you rich enough to retire? Or are you perfecting your burger flipping technique? What's it going to be, and at what point in the process do you plan to exit gracefully and begin your new career?
Will Rogers never met me.
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This article on cnn.com[^] discusses HP's decision to exit the PC business, and predicts that others will follow. The PC we all know and love/hate has been a marginal product line for at least a decade, and I'm surprised that any major manufacturer bothers with it still. It's not possible to operate a business that returns a margin of 2% - 5% and survive for very long. The Wintel platform has had its day, and it's been a good run of 30 years or so, but its era is winding down. The article doesn't make any predictions, but I think the end will come sooner rather than later; that's just the way paradigm shifts work. When it does, people won't be replacing their old PCs with new ones, but will instead be buying prepackaged, integrated tools that just do what they need them to do with a minimum of fuss. What are you doing to prepare for the sea change? Working on new skills, like mobile development, or cloud-based solutions? Are you working on one last killer app that will make you rich enough to retire? Or are you perfecting your burger flipping technique? What's it going to be, and at what point in the process do you plan to exit gracefully and begin your new career?
Will Rogers never met me.
You're kidding yes? First: there are plenty of businesses that compete just fine getting margins at the 2-5% range.. I'm guessing you know some by name.. you just haven't realized it (most supermarkets have these types of margins). Tech players have been spoiled by high margins.. this is changing due to the transition of PCs into more of a commodity. HP wants its big profits.. thats fine.. but saying a company won't survive for long with lower margins is a tad out of touch. As to Wintel surviving, there are lots of folks claiming their time is at an end.. but the wars ain't over yet.. and Microsoft has a history of listening to their customers. In the end they'll chase the direction that their customers are going. Their success, like any other company, is dependent on how closely they listen to the market. The past is the past.. Time will tell, but I'm not counting them out yet.
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It does follow, when you consider a company's ability to weather economic downturns, price wars, etc. With a margin of 10% - 15% you have some wiggle room. There are far more lucrative areas in which to invest capital, and there's little incentive to settle for such a low ROI. The fact that many people still want to buy PCs is not a good reason to keep making them, if you can't make a decent profit; let them eat tablets.
Will Rogers never met me.
No it DOES NOT FOLLOW. If what you were saying was true, no supermarket or appliance manufacturer would last more than a few years. Low margins are daily realities in many industries. If you judge business by high tech alone, your understanding of general business will be myopic. The high tech industry over the last 40 years is typical of NEW markets.. but as those markets mature, margins drop and bad competitors are driven out. That is the PC market right now. Most of the real innovation has been done.. Lower margins aren't harbingers of total failure, just an indicator that the PC market place has become commoditized (and thank god for that.. lower prices means easier access for folks that used to not be able to afford a good PC).
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This article on cnn.com[^] discusses HP's decision to exit the PC business, and predicts that others will follow. The PC we all know and love/hate has been a marginal product line for at least a decade, and I'm surprised that any major manufacturer bothers with it still. It's not possible to operate a business that returns a margin of 2% - 5% and survive for very long. The Wintel platform has had its day, and it's been a good run of 30 years or so, but its era is winding down. The article doesn't make any predictions, but I think the end will come sooner rather than later; that's just the way paradigm shifts work. When it does, people won't be replacing their old PCs with new ones, but will instead be buying prepackaged, integrated tools that just do what they need them to do with a minimum of fuss. What are you doing to prepare for the sea change? Working on new skills, like mobile development, or cloud-based solutions? Are you working on one last killer app that will make you rich enough to retire? Or are you perfecting your burger flipping technique? What's it going to be, and at what point in the process do you plan to exit gracefully and begin your new career?
Will Rogers never met me.
Are you predicting that you can develop mobile apps on a mobile device, or develop cloud apps on cloud?
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This article on cnn.com[^] discusses HP's decision to exit the PC business, and predicts that others will follow. The PC we all know and love/hate has been a marginal product line for at least a decade, and I'm surprised that any major manufacturer bothers with it still. It's not possible to operate a business that returns a margin of 2% - 5% and survive for very long. The Wintel platform has had its day, and it's been a good run of 30 years or so, but its era is winding down. The article doesn't make any predictions, but I think the end will come sooner rather than later; that's just the way paradigm shifts work. When it does, people won't be replacing their old PCs with new ones, but will instead be buying prepackaged, integrated tools that just do what they need them to do with a minimum of fuss. What are you doing to prepare for the sea change? Working on new skills, like mobile development, or cloud-based solutions? Are you working on one last killer app that will make you rich enough to retire? Or are you perfecting your burger flipping technique? What's it going to be, and at what point in the process do you plan to exit gracefully and begin your new career?
Will Rogers never met me.
Exit of PC hardware is not the same things as exit of software engineering -- apps still need to get written to some platform. HP is just realizing that the platform isn't going to be PCs forever and acting on this first, probably while it still has some extractable value. As for SW engineering, yes, those of us that stay in the industry will have to upgrade skills. Since when has that been new? Its not like our skills are tied to PC hardware or anything. As for the demise of Wintel, its demise is greatly (double plus greatly, actually) exaggerated -- I don't see the global population preparing to switch to Apple laptops and Apple tablets and Apple phones.
patbob
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_Maxxx_ wrote:
'never need more than 64k
And there is no need for anyone to have a computer in their home. ::shrug::
PIEBALDconsult wrote:
And there is no need for anyone to have a computer in their home.
And the world-wide market for computers will only be 4 to 5.
Psychosis at 10 Film at 11 Those who do not remember the past, are doomed to repeat it. Those who do not remember the past, cannot build upon it.
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Exit of PC hardware is not the same things as exit of software engineering -- apps still need to get written to some platform. HP is just realizing that the platform isn't going to be PCs forever and acting on this first, probably while it still has some extractable value. As for SW engineering, yes, those of us that stay in the industry will have to upgrade skills. Since when has that been new? Its not like our skills are tied to PC hardware or anything. As for the demise of Wintel, its demise is greatly (double plus greatly, actually) exaggerated -- I don't see the global population preparing to switch to Apple laptops and Apple tablets and Apple phones.
patbob
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I must say I am a little concerned. My parents bought the IPAD2. Now their laptop is just sitting and collecting dust. However, I am a ASP.NET developer so I'm not too worried but it does look like the time will come when PCs or laptops will probably only be seen in businesses. I think this will come quicker than most think ! Isn't it fun being a developer ? I know at some point I'm going to end up driving a truck for a living. I'm not sure how but I'm convinced its going to happen ! HAHA !
UBX wrote: I know at some point I'm going to end up driving a truck for a living No, no, no, don't do it, truck drivers have more breakdowns that their trucks - believe me :( Keep on typing! :) The older I get the better I was mikeo
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This article on cnn.com[^] discusses HP's decision to exit the PC business, and predicts that others will follow. The PC we all know and love/hate has been a marginal product line for at least a decade, and I'm surprised that any major manufacturer bothers with it still. It's not possible to operate a business that returns a margin of 2% - 5% and survive for very long. The Wintel platform has had its day, and it's been a good run of 30 years or so, but its era is winding down. The article doesn't make any predictions, but I think the end will come sooner rather than later; that's just the way paradigm shifts work. When it does, people won't be replacing their old PCs with new ones, but will instead be buying prepackaged, integrated tools that just do what they need them to do with a minimum of fuss. What are you doing to prepare for the sea change? Working on new skills, like mobile development, or cloud-based solutions? Are you working on one last killer app that will make you rich enough to retire? Or are you perfecting your burger flipping technique? What's it going to be, and at what point in the process do you plan to exit gracefully and begin your new career?
Will Rogers never met me.
I'll write an article saying, "The PC Is Dead". Stupid managers at many marginal PC producers will decide the sky is falling and exit the business. Only the business will still be there, so my volumes will go up. Bwah ha ha. Every grocery store lives with margins like this. You just have to be ready for it. I notice that there are still grocery stores. Hmmm. Maybe because people need to buy groceries? Maybe people will innovate, adding more value so they can charge higher margins. At least one PC maker (Apple) gets this. Not only do they make tablets that are the new hotness, but they make PCs which sell for twice what your ordinary PC of similar capability does. Can we deny that this strategy has been successful for them? If you want to send messages, you still need a keyboard. If you want to watch movies, you still need a screen. Unless you have a photographic memory, you need to store things. Call it a PC or call it something else, it's still gonna be there. Maybe we'll finally get the 15", 2 lb, instant-on notebook that we've been needing since the KayPro 1. Because they can charge more for that.
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This article on cnn.com[^] discusses HP's decision to exit the PC business, and predicts that others will follow. The PC we all know and love/hate has been a marginal product line for at least a decade, and I'm surprised that any major manufacturer bothers with it still. It's not possible to operate a business that returns a margin of 2% - 5% and survive for very long. The Wintel platform has had its day, and it's been a good run of 30 years or so, but its era is winding down. The article doesn't make any predictions, but I think the end will come sooner rather than later; that's just the way paradigm shifts work. When it does, people won't be replacing their old PCs with new ones, but will instead be buying prepackaged, integrated tools that just do what they need them to do with a minimum of fuss. What are you doing to prepare for the sea change? Working on new skills, like mobile development, or cloud-based solutions? Are you working on one last killer app that will make you rich enough to retire? Or are you perfecting your burger flipping technique? What's it going to be, and at what point in the process do you plan to exit gracefully and begin your new career?
Will Rogers never met me.
Advances in speech technology will quickly negate the need for a keyboard. I imagine a Kinect-like environment for the gestural wiring together of computational objects, in conjunction with the afore mentioned speech recognition technologies, that will quickly satisfy the need for an "organic" connection to our code. The PC is just a tool for climbing the mountain in our minds. We will adapt and reach for the next handhold. We may need to abandon the emotional attachments that we feel to these wonderful "companions" in order to move into the future, but we have done that before and we shall once again.
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ahmed zahmed wrote:
new format of PC
Yes, a more personal Personal Computer.
I guess we are just going back to the UNIX times in which you moved from one console to another. However, we just take the tablet with us (or incredibly powerful phone) and just connect it to a display, a tv or projector. That sounds pretty cool.
My new toy: www.cloudclipx.com -- If I have 8 hours to chop down a tree, I spend 6 sharpening my ax!
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This article on cnn.com[^] discusses HP's decision to exit the PC business, and predicts that others will follow. The PC we all know and love/hate has been a marginal product line for at least a decade, and I'm surprised that any major manufacturer bothers with it still. It's not possible to operate a business that returns a margin of 2% - 5% and survive for very long. The Wintel platform has had its day, and it's been a good run of 30 years or so, but its era is winding down. The article doesn't make any predictions, but I think the end will come sooner rather than later; that's just the way paradigm shifts work. When it does, people won't be replacing their old PCs with new ones, but will instead be buying prepackaged, integrated tools that just do what they need them to do with a minimum of fuss. What are you doing to prepare for the sea change? Working on new skills, like mobile development, or cloud-based solutions? Are you working on one last killer app that will make you rich enough to retire? Or are you perfecting your burger flipping technique? What's it going to be, and at what point in the process do you plan to exit gracefully and begin your new career?
Will Rogers never met me.
People have been using fear based thinking for 1000's of years and most those fears never have been realized. programmers have long fear the end of programming, not realizing that most oh humanity is clueless enough to even use basic scripting languages. stop thinking too much and have a cup of tea and listen to the wind blow through the trees.
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This is the usual prediction by pundits. People who think they can predict where the industry will be in ten years, or five years, are generally wrong. I found this statement from the article rather telling: "Fully integrated hardware and software systems like Apple's iPhone, iPad and Macintosh are becoming more sought-after in the technology industry. Apple does not break out its segment profits, but it is the eighth most-profitable company on the Fortune 500. " How does the MacIntosh gain in popularity fit into this equation? Suddenly everyone who thought Macs were too expensive are going to run out and buy them? Because it's the "smart thing to do"? No, this is evidence that the writer of the article is covering up some weak research. This is the usual analysis method where we take a trend, draw a line into the future, and say that "if nothing else changes..." But something always changes and if such analytic techniques were spot-on we'd all be working for Microsoft, getting our power from Enron, be completely out of petroleum, and everyone we know would have AIDS. Now we will each own multiple iphones, multiple ipads, and Apple will own everything else because that's where the trend logically leads. Faugh. The home pc will die when it dies. By the time CNN will be aware of it it will have been dead for five years.
_____________________________ Give a man a mug, he drinks for a day. Teach a man to mug...
smcnulty2000 wrote:
People who think they can predict where the industry will be in ten years, or five years, are generally wrong.
Actually they are almost always wrong. Random chance insures some guesses will be correct. For those that think that they can predict the future then I always wonder why they are not rich. Not to mention of course that they are seldom confident enough in their predictions to substantially back it up with a financial investment that reflects their prediction.
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I agree 100% with PIEBALDconsult. Like him, I work on an enterprise solution (that's connected to by desktops, tablets, smart phones and even electronic devices). I couldn't imagine developing our product on anything but an adequately powered PC (or a Linux workstation if we were non-Microsoft). We happen to use quad core Xeons with 8G RAM, a 100G SSD as a system disk, and a vanilla 2TB 7200rpm secondary disk. All work is of course checked in to a TFS server. All dev workstations are equipped with dual 1920x1200 panels. That being said, I agree that the client PC market is fast losing share to smaller footprint portable devices. The age of the family computer is past. But enterprises will continue to have a need for desktop devices, with their field personnel moving from laptops and netbooks to tablets or just smartphones. /ravi
My new year resolution: 2048 x 1536 Home | Articles | My .NET bits | Freeware ravib(at)ravib(dot)com
Can I send you my resume? hahahahahaha Nice work environment!
My new toy: www.cloudclipx.com -- If I have 8 hours to chop down a tree, I spend 6 sharpening my ax!
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Advances in speech technology will quickly negate the need for a keyboard. I imagine a Kinect-like environment for the gestural wiring together of computational objects, in conjunction with the afore mentioned speech recognition technologies, that will quickly satisfy the need for an "organic" connection to our code. The PC is just a tool for climbing the mountain in our minds. We will adapt and reach for the next handhold. We may need to abandon the emotional attachments that we feel to these wonderful "companions" in order to move into the future, but we have done that before and we shall once again.
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One can imagine all sorts of things. However the vast majority will never be realized. And there is certainly nothing that suggests that there is going to be a huge breakthrough in speech recognition given that it has been around for decades.
Need and pragmatism and single-minded effort drive realization. Huge breakthroughs are not required in most endeavors. A few small breakthroughs, mercifully stumbled upon after decades of effort, will suffice. Anyone who has attempted to use any SAPI to accomplish any non-trivial task realizes that you are absolutely and justifiably correct in your skepticism. There is, however, a certain insulation and fulfillment that comes from not giving up on ones strange imaginings. The world was flat for awhile.
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This article on cnn.com[^] discusses HP's decision to exit the PC business, and predicts that others will follow. The PC we all know and love/hate has been a marginal product line for at least a decade, and I'm surprised that any major manufacturer bothers with it still. It's not possible to operate a business that returns a margin of 2% - 5% and survive for very long. The Wintel platform has had its day, and it's been a good run of 30 years or so, but its era is winding down. The article doesn't make any predictions, but I think the end will come sooner rather than later; that's just the way paradigm shifts work. When it does, people won't be replacing their old PCs with new ones, but will instead be buying prepackaged, integrated tools that just do what they need them to do with a minimum of fuss. What are you doing to prepare for the sea change? Working on new skills, like mobile development, or cloud-based solutions? Are you working on one last killer app that will make you rich enough to retire? Or are you perfecting your burger flipping technique? What's it going to be, and at what point in the process do you plan to exit gracefully and begin your new career?
Will Rogers never met me.
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smcnulty2000 wrote:
People who think they can predict where the industry will be in ten years, or five years, are generally wrong.
Actually they are almost always wrong. Random chance insures some guesses will be correct. For those that think that they can predict the future then I always wonder why they are not rich. Not to mention of course that they are seldom confident enough in their predictions to substantially back it up with a financial investment that reflects their prediction.
Too darned right. I was being too generous. :thumbsup:
_____________________________ Give a man a mug, he drinks for a day. Teach a man to mug...
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Need and pragmatism and single-minded effort drive realization. Huge breakthroughs are not required in most endeavors. A few small breakthroughs, mercifully stumbled upon after decades of effort, will suffice. Anyone who has attempted to use any SAPI to accomplish any non-trivial task realizes that you are absolutely and justifiably correct in your skepticism. There is, however, a certain insulation and fulfillment that comes from not giving up on ones strange imaginings. The world was flat for awhile.
ErrolErrol wrote:
The world was flat for awhile.
And now it's crooked. :laugh:
_____________________________ Give a man a mug, he drinks for a day. Teach a man to mug...