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Comment by radlad | Hacker News Reader

It seems to me like Microsoft is trying to position themselves more as a Google-type entity. In the past, they were a massive proprietary corporation focused on Windows.

Nobody cares about computers anymore (thanks smartphones, tablets!), and so Windows will go down the drain eventually. Not to mention Linux and OSX market share increasing. Not today, not tomorrow, but the writing's on the wall.

Open source to get devs on board again, switch to subscription-based models, record more user data, and create more products.

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> Nobody cares about computers anymore

You know, it was annoying when people started to say those computers you carry with yourself the entire day were not "personal computers".

Now you are trying to say they are not even "computers"! I just hope the world ignores your labels.

Every label gets stuck to its progenitor. The first things that we owned that were computers get called computers. The second set of things we own, that are also computers, but have some other defining qualities, get called something else to distinguish them from the first thing.

I'm perfectly ok with naming them "telephones", or "smartphones". As I'm quite ok with naming those older ones "desktops" and "laptops".

I find the name "PC" for distinguishing desktops/laptops from phones/tablets mildly annoying, and very amusing because of how badly the name fits its meaning. But yes, there is a need to differentiate open computers from locked-down computers, and from that point of view the name isn't that bad anymore.

Now, there's no need at all to assign the label "computer" to any form-factor. We have plenty of label already, and that would make a huge mess on communications.

I call it "the super computer in my pocket", but that label doesn't seem to be catching on.

> Nobody cares about computers anymore (thanks smartphones, tablets!), and so Windows will go down the drain eventually

Not holding my breath for that.

Agree, but with a disclaimer: I have a feeling the biggest part of Windows' marketshare 20 years from now will be Windows Server Core instances (running on Azure and elsewhere), with "Windows as PC software" no longer contributing much-at-all to the bottom line, and possibly made entirely free. Business workstations (everything currently running Windows Enterprise) will run something-or-other-that-doesn't-matter that can run Microsoft Remote Desktop, and apps will mostly be delivered via RemoteApp connections to said Windows Server Core clusters.

Microsoft is becoming a cloud company, and enterprises are finally starting to accept thin clients (because now thin clients are actually kind of fat, and thus much less annoying to use.) Windows-on-the-desktop will basically be in a race against ChromeOS, which is fundamentally a thin-client OS as well.

(Meanwhile, OSX will probably... continue to just be OSX. Unless Apple has some big new shift in vision, they're nowhere near being a cloud company, and OSX is nowhere near being a thin-client OS.)

Apple is a hardware company, too.

They kind of have to be. They forbid using their OSes on non-Apple hardware.

Desktop use is shrinking compared to alternatives --- especially mobile. In developing countries, many people use smartphones as their only form of access to the internet.

People aren't saying that desktops etc are going to disappear, but that the cash cow in the next decade is probably going to have a much smaller form factor and a different OS from your traditional desktop.

This is exactly what I was trying to say, thank you.

Wait....are you telling me that used a computer today? And the day before that? And the day before...

Ah, you're probably behind the times and not very techy anyway.

I'm using a computer right now. I use a cellphone when I'm out, and use a tablet in bed/on the couch. I use a laptop when not home.

I use my computer to stream games on TwitchTV. I also run a Linux VM on my personal computer to run caffe for neural net things. Let's see your tablet do that...

Tablets are computers.

Computer + X = Computer

Computer + teletype = Computer

Computer + VDU = Computer

Computer + Mouse = Computer

Computer + Ethernet = Computer

Computer + Phone = Computer

Computer platforms devour the peripherals mated to them.

BTW The Limbo PC emulator on Android is capable of running a minimal Linux distro and there are MS DOS emulators for iOS. It's just a matter of time.

BRB, installing vmware on my Win8 tablet.

It still won't run caffe because you don't have a powerful GPU to train neural nets on

> Nobody cares about computers anymore

You're not in touch with reality at all

I think the comment to which you were responding was both thoughtful and, yes, provocative. You took the bait, but you didn't add anything of substance. Do you think that attributing some of the shift in how computing is done to tablets/smartphones is "not in touch with reality"? Because if you can show some data or link to other arguments, that would be really interesting. If not, why post?

The parent post didn't say anything thoughtful. The same spiel about Windows going down the drain has been repeated for years. People not using computers is just mindlessly repeated these days.

You're asking me to provide data or links to other arguments but the initial statement provided neither.

Why did you call my comment out but not the other two similar responses to the same line?

I could say that you proved my comment to provocative and took the bait but then we'll spiral into comment hell.

I replied to your post because I saw it first. Had I seen the others at the time, I might have just moved on.

What I understand when people say the PC is dying is not that people will not touch a desktop or laptop at all in the foreseeable future but rather that the growth in sales will be much sharpernwith phones and tabletsbthan with desktop and laptop devices. They're not making broad, futuristic predictions. They're just trying to make sense of the market. The fact that Apple released a whole line of iPads kindnof shows this. That is just my opinio though.

Moore's Law is slowing down, and PCs and laptops are having longer effective lifetimes. I've got an eight year old laptop that's still serviceable - actually runs better with Windows 10 than it did with the Vista that came on it. It's not obsolescence every eighteen months any more. That's where phones are now. In a few years, they'll mature, and it'll be how VR goggles or the next gewgaw are killing the PC. Meanwhile PCs will still be there anywhere actual work and creation needs to happen.

Or maybe I'm a prematurely old man, who's looking for kids to yell at about getting off his lawn. But I haven't found a use for tablets other than watching TV or reading, and I can't even really do those functions on a phone. Much less use a phone as a phone. What percentage of smartphones are primarily used as uber-expensive, complicated digital watches or alarm clocks?

Which is exactly the point I (the parent comment of this thread) was trying to make: The desktop/laptop (which I described using the term computer in my original post) market is declining. Not because they aren't used anymore, but because I don't need to replace them anymore.

You do realize that that's a totally different argument that "nobody cares about computers anymore".

The market doesn't care anymore about getting the hot new computer. They care about the new, shinier gadgets. I don't think it's a different argument.

It is. In one we have "the market" as the one who cares or not. On the other we have "the people".

The people will continue to care for and use computers, even if the hot new market is something else.

Fair enough. I didn't meant to start a "thing" with my comment but thought maybe it would make you explain what you meant. I'll word my comments better in future.

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