For those that insist that a PC is something that runs M$’s stuff, I will use “personal computer” throughout this post to mean some small computer that a person can own and use at home, at work, on the way to work etc. The world is awash with them. Some of them are somewhat specialized like the ones built into refrigerators but many are quite general-purpose, allowing people to find, create, modify and display information of any kind that can have a digital representation.
I have been using computers for decades and have seen them shrink from mega-dollar room-filling beasts (IBM 360) to gadgets the size of a man’s thumb. I have seen them speed up from millisecond clock-speeds to several gigaHertz. I have seen computers made from discrete components (IBM 1620), computers made from motherboards choked with integrated circuits to computers where everything is on one chip except the connectors.
Over the years, computers have gone from expensive engines only affordable by big business and universities to sub-$100 units that billions of people can afford. The tendency has definitely been towards smaller, cheaper and more mobile computers. That breaks the Wintel model of expensive boxes bundling expensive CPUs from Intel and expensive software-licences from M$, Wintel. No longer are personal computers the product of a few OEMs that Wintel puts on a leash to ship only M$’s OS. China has hundreds of OEMs large and small shipping small cheap computers running GNU/Linux and Android/Linux.
The price/performance of the new small cheap computers is definitely superior to Wintel for consumers, businesses and OEMs. Instead of sending half the price to M$ and Intel, OEMs love keeping the price to themselves. That changes everything and greatly reduced the power of Wintel. In fact, Wintel is clinging to a few niches as the life of Wintel depends on them: desktops in business and retail shelves in North America and Europe. The rest of the world has more choice.
As Cringely observes,
“What’s keeping us using desktops and even notebook, then, are corporate buying policies, hardware replacement cycles, and inertia.
How long before the PC as we knew it is dead? About five years I reckon, or 1.5 PC hardware replacement cycles.
Nearly all of us are on our next-to-last PC.”
Many small cheap computers can accept connections to a large monitor, keyboard mouse, and powerful servers able to do most tasks people need doing. It’s just a matter of time before the Wintel personal computer declines to a tiny niche. It’s just a matter of time before the Wintel monopoly is a memory.
see I, Cringely » Blog Archive Life after the personal computer.
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That breaks the Wintel model …
I think you miss the message here, Mr. Pogson, the inexpensive, portable devices serve special needs, for example the Kindle or Nook book readers and simply augment the use of “conventional” PCs rather than replace them. If computers are getting smaller and cheaper for the same capability, the uses to which they are being put increase in complexity and thus demand more computational capabililty.
You look for a static sort of universe in which the costs of what you say are sufficient functionality is driven towards zero. However, that has not been the history of these devices. If it can compute as well as the PC of 1990, then the users want it to play audio. If it plays audio to perfection, they want video. If you give them video, they want it at a higher definition and color range. If they can have a full length feature film stored, they want to have a choice of 10 or 100.
Your $100 tablet is passe’ before it is delivered and is sneered at by the sophisticated buyer who has seen the latest and wants it now.
I might note that Cringely seems to be in a faster state of decline than Microsoft. Far from being dead, PC’s in the classic sense are increasing numerically year over year. They are still evolving and hardly dying. Cringely is an old fool and has himself mostly vanished from the scene.
Clarence Moon wrote, “PC’s in the classic sense are increasing numerically year over year.”
There’s some evidence of that. IDC reports that shipments rose only a few percent last quarter. That’s more than enough to replace deaths/discards.
There are about 1500 PCs (x86/amd64) on Earth. 360 million per annum shipped means the average lifetime has to be less than four years just to hold the numbers constant. Many are being kept for 4-8 years so, yes, numbers are increasing annually. Wintel used to be assured of 10% per annum growth in shipments. People are buying smart thingies instead of buying a Wintel PC. The rate of growth of PCs is mostly due to PCs lasting longer, not shipments by OEMs. The capabilities of smart thingies are such that many first-time buyers of smart thingies will not have any need for a Wintel PC and there are far more purchases of smart thingies than Wintel PCs. It’s a tipping point. M$ sees it. That’s why they have ported to ARM and why they are trying to exclude */Linux from ARM.
The latest reports claiming hardly any growth for pc at all. 370 million new non-mobile devices for this year, about 300 million to hazardous waste (sad thing coz most of them would work nice with Linux).
So there will be only 70 million more pc in 2012 than in 2011 but 700 million more mobiles. The quantitative growth rate is 10:1 for mobiles. That’s the trend. But surely there will never be any non-mobile pc boom from now on. PC is not dying but it’s becoming marginal device. Mobiles are already the mainstream.
Mats Hagglund the waste issue should not be happening in fact.
The tech to fully recycle mobile phones exists. Just governments have not passed laws requiring it to be used.
The vision of “small cheap computers” Mr. Pogson has in mind isn’t far away from a totalitarian’s wet dream.
You have small devices which are — despite their software being open source — for all practical purposes controlled by their makers and rely on the monopolist Google.
You have always-on connections to servers doing the “hard work”, these servers not being controlled by the user.
My guess is that Mr. Pogson would also be perfectly able to live a fine life in a totalitarian state, as long as he could sing himself to sleep by reminding him that all those “small cheap computers” run GNU/Linux.
Chris Weig Quite a few of the android devices support third party firmware.
“You have always-on connections to servers doing the “hard work”, these servers not being controlled by the user.”
This is describing Apple devices. Latest generation android include local text to speech and other back ground processes.
Chris Weig wrote more innuendo.
Innuendo … LOL. Does the truth hurt so much, Mr. Pogson? If Kim Jong-un were to proclaim that North Korea switched to Linux tomorrow, you’d go: “Right on!” Why don’t you send them some Raspberry Pi’s? These would surely make this democratic dictatorship fall in no time.
It’s a tipping point. M$ sees it. That’s why they have ported to ARM and why they are trying to exclude */Linux from ARM.
That is a silly way to look at things, Mr. Pogson. The “traditional” PC is a mature product, certainly, just as the automobile, the motorcycle, and the microwave oven. Not to mention the HDTV or George Foreman counter-top grill. The ascendancy of a new product does not spell the death of an old product as long as the use cases do not totally overlap.
You cannot do business with just an Android phone or tablet or the two combined. As much as you suggest that “people love small, cheap computers”, you are completely mistaken. Perhaps extreme penny-pinchers will stifle their instincts and limit themselves to some such minimalistic behavior, but not the vast majority of consumers.
Microsoft has introduced ARM compatible software to satisfy a need in the market, pure and simple. I believe that they will make a profit doing that and they will create a market niche for themselves in the process. Whether there are other niches for cheap, Android devices or not, they will get their share, I am sure, and it really does not matter to their bottom line whether or not some other product niches are larger or smaller than theirs.
Chris Weig Android and chromeos devices over time are becoming less server linked. Requirement to ship a chromeos device is a bios lock override switch so they can be retasked. So the simplest google device to install your own firmware is chromeos device.
Strange for such a network locked device that it contains an override right.
Chris Weig you being a idiot knows no bounds. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Star_OS
North Korea does run Linux. Mind you its a highly restricted OS. So its too late to talk about North Korea switching to linux that happened 2002. Catch up with the times Chris Weig.
North Korea’s reasons are valid ones. In times of war USA goverment have used there control of the Microsoft update system to shutdown windows computers in a particular area for taticial advantage this was documented in the iraq war.
There is a reason for key systems of any country to be run on a OS that country directly controls.
Of course this does not make everything North Korea does valid.
So if North Korea was ordering Raspberry Pi’s I would not be supprised.
Information is power. Information is highly restricted in North Korea.
About time you go and do some fact checking before you go and put your foot in it again Chris Weig.
So there will be only 70 million more pc in 2012 than in 2011 but 700 million more mobiles.
You pull more figures out of thin air, Mr. Hagglund, but correct or not, they have no bearing on Cringely’s thesis. As you seem to agree, PC sales are still increasing and, consequently, still not on any decline, particularly any decline that would spell the end of the market in a short time frame.
Also, people seem to exchange their phones for new ones at a much more rapid rate than they do computers. Between physical losses, destructive mishaps, and just plain lust for a new model with the latest features, I myself have gone through some 8 different phones in the past 10 years. I am a phone laggard as well, so I would suspect that the average rate is closer to 12 months for the main market consumer.
oiaohm: “The tech to fully recycle mobile phones exists.”
But the money does not… bummer. Here’s an idea though! Scrap your Automated Assault System (aka Robotic Videogame Player) and develop something we could all benefit from. I’m talking about an Automated Mobile Phone Recycling Systems programed to scour the earth in search of unwanted mobile phones and other electronics to collect and deliver to a recycling facility. Even better, if a person hands the machine a phone to be recycled, it thanks them and plays an automated recording preaching the benefits of FOSS over EVIL PROPRIETARY SOFTWARE.
This would work in conjunction with the Automated Linux Defense system. If enough people can be converted to FOSS via recycling robots, that’s going to make defending FOSS that much easier. Right? A clean, FREE world, fit for all people, even men who refuse to shave. Glorious.
NOW GET TO WORK!
Clarence Moon wrote, “You cannot do business with just an Android phone or tablet or the two combined. As much as you suggest that “people love small, cheap computers”, you are completely mistaken. Perhaps extreme penny-pinchers will stifle their instincts and limit themselves to some such minimalistic behavior, but not the vast majority of consumers.”
So, you deny the prolonged decline in growth of PC-shipments? People can and do business with smart phones and tablets. Many young people and some businesses have no need of a big box at all. In my last career, the heaviest users of PCs were not the students or teachers but the secretaries and myself. The students and teachers would have no problem using tablets if they could hook a $20 keyboard on one. Any tablet can keep up with a person pointing, clicking and gawking.
For viewing video, tablets have taken a significant bite. The only thing for which people need the big box is burning/playing discs. They might just as well use a USB drive.
“People can and do business with smart phones and tablets. ”
As an adjunct to portables and desktops Pog.
So, you deny the prolonged decline in growth of PC-shipments?
There certainly has not been any decline in PC-shipments of any note. In terms of absolute increase, I would wager that sales of PCs are increasing at as great a pace as ever. In terms of year over year percentages, I think that you are correct to say that the rate of increase has been declining and is more or less in tune with overall world economic activity, much the same as autos, TV, microwaves, etc..
If you want to paint market maturity as a decline in Microsoft’s fortunes, go ahead, but, as I said, you only look odd for making the observation. PCs are no longer a “hot” business and everyone knows that. You are one of the few who are for some reason smug about it.
On the other hand, the business, for Microsoft, of supplying OS software for these devices returns some $20B per year and is not showing any fundamental decline, making Cringely into a false prophet.
Chris Weig wrote:
“If Kim Jong-un were to proclaim that North Korea switched to Linux tomorrow, you’d go: “Right on!” ”
Your words are like a breath of hot, fetid air.
To the Cult of Microsoft it’s still 1995.
“To the Cult of Microsoft it’s still 1995.”
To the cult of linux its 1970.
Your words are like a breath of hot, fetid air.
Stallman’s toe jam has more substance than your meaningless writing exercises. Go and lick his feet.
To the Cult of Microsoft it’s still 1995.
You’d be glad if it were 1995 for you. But Linux still hasn’t reached the functionality of Windows 95. But I have this feeling that the day of the Linux Desktop is “just around the corner”.
Chris Weig you being a idiot knows no bounds. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Star_OS
Yeah, yeah, calm down, you little rascal. Red Star OS is a meaningless propaganda product. In North Korea they use Windows, like everywhere else. With the crucial difference that it’s pirated there. Kim Jong-un was educated abroad. He knows what a steaming pile of dung GNU/Linux is. I bet he helped himself to some shiny Apple products by means of his Chinese friends.
To the Cult of Microsoft it’s still 1995.
Chris Weit wrote:
“But Linux still hasn’t reached the functionality of Windows 95.”
QED
@ldman wrote:
Nothing original.
QED
It’s nice that you agree that Linux hasn’t yet surpassed Windows 95. Seems like there’s one good brain cell left.
“Nothing original.”
Truth doesn’t need originality.
“To the Cult of Microsoft it’s still 1995.”
You should not project onto others your own issues Mr. cult member.
Chris Weig
“It’s nice that you agree that Linux hasn’t yet surpassed Windows 95. Seems like there’s one good brain cell left.”
I would like to know where you get that idea from. 95 was not a good OS in any way shape or form. Stability Linux systems you would have to put around Windows 2000 at a min.
Desktop features exceed 7.
System wide integration about Windows XP.
Yes mixed bag but this is what you expect.
oldman
“To the cult of linux its 1970.”
No that is BSD. You start talking about dbus and other things that Linux has added to make desktop interface simple to use and you hear the BSD guys complain. BSD is stuck in the 1970.
Linux has moved on. Not as fast as they would have liked. To where is a very good question. Some area are ahead of Microsoft some areas are behind and some are kinda equal.
Chris Weig wrote, “Linux hasn’t yet surpassed Windows 95″
Hah! Lose ’95 brought me to GNU/Linux for the superior reliability. On the same hardware MTBF changed from 1 hour to six months of solid uptime.
To bring the topic back to the “small cheap Android tablets”, it looks like they are a rather lucrative business for Microsoft:
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/07/two-vendors-pay-microsoft-for-the-right-to-sell-cheap-android-tablets/
Phenom wrote, of Android/Linux tablets, “it looks like they are a rather lucrative business for Microsoft”.
The way the courts are bashing software patents these days, that should not last much longer. I doubt anyone is paying more than a tip to go away or it would be a major item in their SEC filings. Hundreds of million of Android/Linux systems are selling annually. Even $10 per unit would bring in $billions. I think M$ may not be getting more than $1 per unit as their tax otherwise it would pay to fight them in court. How’s M$ v Google going? Oh, not well? I guess M$ doesn’t think they would win on the basis of software patents. They are being paid for nuisance value, like some pushy street-beggar.
Phenom really its becoming quite serous. The IP courts in the usa are starting to back log with IP cases.
There is a risk that the IP rights will be expired before they can get threw the legal system.
Please be aware Microsoft has not been winning outright either. Motorola agrees to settle with MS if MS pays them. Same with a lot of other IP holders are holding out of this. Result could be MS loses the IP war. Lot of settlements are not in MS favour.
Pogson wrote: “I think M$ may not be getting more than $1 per unit as their tax otherwise it would pay to fight them in court. How’s M$ v Google going?”
Still MS get something, while Google in effect get nothing from Android directly. Google’s only source of income is indirect – clicks on ads.
Which is also good, but lately Google has been reducing the margin to publishers, artificially increasing their turnover. This should speak something to you.
Phenom
“Still MS get something, while Google in effect get nothing from Android directly. Google’s only source of income is indirect – clicks on ads.”
Not true. http://www.google.com/nexus/ Nexus set of devices google does get income from directly because of Android. Then there are a stack of indirect incomes that are being protected. Like gmail and google docs for enterprise.
Lack of homework there is money game in it for Google.
Also remember Google acquired Motorola so making it more of a direct device maker. So saying it doing nothing that gets direct income from Android is completely false. Not doing as well as samsung but samsung also maintains its only Linux based OS.
How’s M$ v Google going?
Didn’t they settle? The suit was against Motorola, actually. Google bought Motorola after the start of the litigation and even that is not final yet.
“Linux has moved on. Not as fast as they would have liked. To where is a very good question. Some area are ahead of Microsoft some areas are behind and some are kinda equal.”
But in the end it is the applications that count. and IN 1995 the desktop applications available on *nix were light years behind with was available running on windows 9x.
Clarence Moon
“Didn’t they settle? The suit was against Motorola, actually. Google bought Motorola after the start of the litigation and even that is not final yet.”
No that have not. Motorola still is holding the card to stop all Microsoft Windows and NT based products imports in the EU they have not applied yet.
Microsoft is trying to win that Motorola cannot use its FRAND patents. Clause in Motorola frand patents was you could use them for free as long as you never tried to stop Motorola products from sale. This is a scorched earth clause. Because there is no way to license the patents other than pay damages to Motorola for disruption of sales and then Motorola does not have to resume license. So yes true scorched earth if Motorola wins. Motorola has offered to settle with Microsoft and Apple paying them forever more.
The IP war is getting very out of hard. We are starting to see companies like Motorola look at applying scorched earth solutions. You attack we end your company.
oldman
“But in the end it is the applications that count. and IN 1995 the desktop applications available on *nix were light years behind with was available running on windows 9x.”
The distance today between Linux desktop and Windows desktop is nowhere near as far as back then so it has closed.
Yonah “But the money does not”. No the money does exist it the will to do it. Cost of machines to turn phones to high grade sorted ore costs $100 000USD. The price will come down. These are currently used in china on the factory floors for any reject phone or device. Reason it cheaper to recycle the material than order new material. And that machine is good for a 100 tones of material between service.
The produce ore is cheaper to convert back into what it started from than starting from new ore or oil. In fact cheaper than mining that material out the ground. In theory you could mine land fill. Compare to natural ore bodies most landfill would be very high yield or what you call top grade ore. I have looked into this I am not allowed to take out a mining permit in Australia to mine ex landfill sites. It would be profitable but legally not allowed. Other countries might not have these restrictions.
oldman wrote, “IN 1995 the desktop applications available on *nix were light years behind with was available running on windows 9x.”
Obviously not so or CERN would be awash with that other OS. It’s there, but in a minimal role. In 1995 the scientific community was using a lot of IT and much of it predated M$ and will exist after M$ has gone. For instance, there are huge libraries for number-crunching in FORTRAN with which M$ has no interest whatsoever. This partly explains the huge presence of GNU/Linux on HPC. GNU/Linux on anything was a decent replacement for UNIX and DEC’s stuff on mini-computers when the PC matured to the point that it was cheap and reliable. Early PCs running DOS, for instance were very unattractive because they crashed so much.
Early PCs running DOS, for instance were very unattractive because they crashed so much.
That’s your dislike/hatred for Microsoft and their OSs speaking again, meaning that you blow everything out of proportion. MS-DOS made the PC usable, whether you like it or not. Crashes? I can’t remember a whole lot. And given the fact that it WAS so much easier to crash MS-DOS, this directly contradicts your “memories” (as always).
So, care to elaborate? I’ll even be content with anecdotes.
Chris Weig wrote, “Early PCs running DOS, for instance were very unattractive because they crashed so much.
That’s your dislike/hatred for Microsoft and their OSs speaking again, meaning that you blow everything out of proportion. MS-DOS made the PC usable, whether you like it or not. Crashes? I can’t remember a whole lot. “
DOS had absolutely no security. Anything going wrong with any process could crash it. I remember worrying about crashing at every “save” or “print” operation. At the time, “common knowledge” was that hardware was “flaky”. In fact, I have run GNU/Linux on some old machines and had utter reliability. M$ rushed stuff to market with little regard to quality. They do better now but their software is so bloated bug-counts still climb.