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TKJunkMail
Enjoy the sun
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join:2002-03-03
Avalon, NJ
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|  U.S. starting to see trend as well
PC functionality is being absorbed by game consoles and home media centers for in home use and for video, music, and game playing on the internet that need big screen monitors.
And on the road, laptops are being replaced by smart phones; iPod Touch like devices; and other small multi-media devices with small screens.
While it may take a decade or more, the traditional desktop and laptop personal computer with a "do every type of application" functionality is being replaced by more function specific devices.
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gaforces
United We Stand, Divided We Fall
join:2002-04-07
Santa Cruz, CA
2 edits | I would still consider all those things a PC.
It's true that the desktop computer is much less popular now. Most people I know that arent gamers, use a laptop now, and even some gamers use a laptop sometimes.
In 1999 I was at the comdex keynote speech for Bill Gates. What I remember was him saying that the desktop was going away and we would use much smaller specialized devices.
They summarized the speech, its not exactly what he said there ... »www.microsoft.com/misc/features/···illg.htm
Its pretty close to what he predicted, but not exactly.
Theres still a market for the desktop machines in that any real work that is done in industry, web, graphics, servers, HTPC's, etc
I like having a large widescreen and a real keyboard/mouse.
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tschmidt
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We are seeing the fulfillment of the old Sun mantra "the network is the computer."
PCs started out as standalone computing devices. The proliferation of low cost wired and wireless networking has changed the balance where now PCs are often used as glorified terminals accessing remote data.
Usage and packaging will continue to evolve. As others have mentioned the PC is a fantastic general purpose computer. There are many other uses that do not require general purpose and function better as a purpose built device.
I think decline in PC market growth has less to do with it being eclipsed by other devices then market saturation in industrialized countries. Our home is networked and we have one (at least) PC per person with another dedicated as a server. It will be quite a while before we need to purchase another one.
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jp10558
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join:2005-06-24
Willseyville, NY
| I expect the issue however, is that there is still a huge advantage to having one device vs many. I mean, look at smartphones - they are more or less a tiny PC. You can't mean to tell me most users would want to carry a ZipIM device (IIRC the name, does AIM wirelessly), a camera, a PALM PDA, an e-mail device, a phone, a GPS and an e-book reader for instance. No, most people will take a bunch of that combined into a Blackberry or iPhone or whatever.
While consoles have remained big for gaming, I just haven't seen many people doing wordprocessing on them. And towards general purpose, how many people have a PS2 or PS3 and dumped their extra DVD Player? Or didn't buy a Blu-Ray player?
How many people use an X-Box for both games and XBMC as opposed to yet another device for streaming video? Or for the build it yourself, got a PC with MYTHTV and more...
Finally, I actually think this is just a shift - Most people have dropped "word processors" for computers + editor of choice, many like keeping gaming on a console. Not too many have moved to WebTV or the like for browsing/email.
However, it is true that many households have one pc per person, possibly a server, and sometimes laptops too. Until we open up China/India or whatever more, the developed world has pretty much reached a saturation point, and PC sales will be more like Washing Machine sales from now on, then a growth industry.
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