Consumers Switching to Small Cheap Computers for Their Default Gateway to the Internet at Robert Pogson

According to IDC,

“Consumers are migrating away from PC-based Internet usage and are increasingly using mobile devices as their default gateway to the Internet, according to the latest release of the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide New Media Market Model. The United States leads that trend, with Western Europe and Japan only about two years behind. In the U.S., the number of people accessing the Internet through PCs will shrink from 240 million consumers in 2012 to 225 million in 2016. At the same time, the number of mobile users will increase from 174 million to 265 million.”

see Consumers Increasingly Using Mobile Devices as Their Default Gateway to the Internet.

Few people actually need PCs for much else:

gaming,
multimedia, and
printing

being major exceptions. The Internet was the reason most people first brought PCs into the home in the first place. This shift is a fundamental change to the marketplace for PCs. The share of PCs in business, productivity, and content generation will increase as the total annual production of PCs stagnates or declines.

This may finally mean retail shelves in many places will sell something other than a standard/x86 PC. People really do tend to want their PC to be smaller and cheaper. This change will also be useful for businesses because a dollar is a dollar and spending fewer to get what needs to be done makes sense. That other OS makes a migration to small cheap computers “a jarring experience” while it’s as smooth as silk with Android/Linux or GNU/Linux. Retailers are noticing. We now have several mechanisms for retailers to desert that other OS: cost, unit sales, and Internet access.

My Mission

My observations and opinions about IT are based on 40 years of use in science and technology and lately, in education. I like IT that is fast, cost-effective and reliable. I do not care whether my solution is the same as yours. I like to think for myself.

My first use of GNU/Linux in 2001 was so remarkably better than what I had been using, I feel it is important work to share GNU/Linux with the world. I have been blessed by working in schools where students and school systems have benefited by good, modular software easily installed in most systems.

I have shown GNU/Linux to thousands of students and hundreds of teachers over the years and will continue in some way doing that until I die in spite of the opposition.