PC era over, here come tablets and smartphones?

The PC is dead; here are mobile devices, says original IBM PC developer.

Rest in P.C. Image retrieved from http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2010/03/-how-to-recover-data-from-a-dead-pc.html

 

Mark Dean, one of the original “gang of 12” who built the IBM PC in 1981 said the PC is going obsolete- and the era of mobile devices like tablets and smartphones is here. 

Dean today is IBM’s Middle East and Africa CTO, and was remarking on the the official 30th birthday of the original IBM PC,which celebrated three decades last month on August 12, 2011. 

In a blog post on August 10, Dean declared:

“PCs are being replaced at the center of computing not by another type of device — though there’s plenty of excitement about smartphones and tablets — but by new ideas about the role that computing can play in progress. These days, it’s becoming clear that innovation flourishes best not on devices but in the social spaces between them, where people and ideas meet and interact. It is there that computing can have the most powerful impact on economy, society and people’s lives.”

This is sad to me since my first job was as a systems engineer with IBM and I got to see the launch of other ground-breaking products like the PS/2, and we all heard the story of the IBM PC in training classes.  

However, in an article in Tech Republic, Jason Hiner says that the rumor of PC’s death is greatly exaggerated– or at least a little premature. 

Hiner’s interpretation of Dean’s statement is that:

computing is no longer about a box but is being absorbed into everything and is now about creating experiences that connect people and enable them to do work wherever there — instead of just when they’re sitting at a desk in front of a PC screen.

Dean also admitted in his blog post that he personally doesn’t use a PC very often anymore. He wrote:

“I, personally, have moved beyond the PC as well. My primary computer now is a tablet. When I helped design the PC, I didn’t think I’d live long enough to witness its decline. But, while PCs will continue to be much-used devices, they’re no longer at the leading edge of computing. They’re going the way of the vacuum tube, typewriter, vinyl records, CRT and incandescent light bulbs.”

Do you think the PC is dead and gone, just on life support, or still has a lot of life in the old guy yet?  Write me and let me know…