Hacker News Reader

Comment by meaty | Hacker News Reader

Lets get it right: PC sales are declining and tablets are hyped.

PC usage isn't declining. There is just no reason to upgrade any more. A bottom end PC from 2 years ago doesn't give you anything more than a brand new one. Our dev workstations are 3 years old and still spot on performance-wise.

Everyone I know with a tablet has a PC and uses it heavily. The tablets are but a small diversion.

However, that is until you realise that Microsoft actually got this when they designed Windows 8 and surface. They worked out how to provide one device which fills both niches. Now Windows 8 and surface aren't perfect, but they will become in time...

Then the PC is dead. Oh no it's not - it's a tablet shaped PC. Again it evolves...

View on HN

Windows 8 is like a queen sacrifice. Windows knows it's burning its bridges, but forcing people to get used to Windows surface. People will hate it on the desktop (because change is bad), but pick a Windows tablet because they've already learnt (unwillingly) how to use it. I'm not saying it's a crap OS, just different. People hate different. Once they get used to it on their PC, it won't be different and they'll buy a Windows tablet.

Then Microsoft can roll back the interface on Windows 9 (making Metro a secondary interface), and corporate buyers will upgrade just to get away from Metro.

And I'm 100% happy with that. I don't like change.

My desktop, which still aims to be as NT4 like as possible: http://i.imgur.com/4fFLq.png

Added Excel 97 vs Excel 2010 for an interesting discussion point as well...

I don't understand you. You're here, on a board that regularly discusses, touts, and builds the bleeding edge, but here you are screaming form the rooftops that you hate change...

Tablets are over-hyped like PCs were over-hyped in the 90s. They are in the ascendency. Not because they're perfect for the work that most of us here on HN are doing/want to do, but because they're closer to perfect for the other 95% of humans. They lack many capabilities today that will limit them from being used in specific areas, but those reasons will dwindle over time.

Change simply for the sake of change, isn't good. However, as someone who loves technology, when I see family and friends successfully USING technology without fear of breaking things or feeling like an idiot? Using technology that brings joy? That is change worth supporting.

Some justification.

Take a look at the screenshot. 5 Office versions and there is no change. Everything works just how it did. I like this lack of change for the following reason:

Over the space of the last 15 years, I have actually had the chance to accumulate knowledge.

I'd like to see products like that which withstand that test of time, not fill up the world with short lived fads which result in the "XYZ is shutting down" posts you see here a lot recently. I don't want to have to throw my entire brain's contents out every few years.

The IT industry is the only industry which you can leave with less valuable knowledge than you started with.

The push of the bleeding edge now is churn, not progress. Name a single startup innovation in the last 10 years that isn't either a restrictive reinvention of something else or a landgrab or a lock in tool?

(insert a sarcastic comment on Facebook being akin to a Stasi database running on a Soviet clone of a VAX11/780...).

For reference, I work on a product which is nearly 20 years old now and we've slowly evolved it rather than come steaming on with all guns blazing with hype and ended up in the trash a year later.

What product do you work on?

Question: Why does it have to be a startup's innovation?

Entire applications now live inside websites. Perhaps you view that as 'lock in', however I can get all of mail out of gmail or dropbox.

The bloat of MS Office is certainly proof that change for the sake of change leads down a terrible path. However, without change, we'd all still be using the nokia 3210 instead of iPhones and iPads.

Startups are all going on about innovation yet none deliver.

Can you get all of your data out of Google's systems before they shut down your account randomly one day? That's a better question to ask?

I agree Office is bloated which is why I still use Excel 97 for a lot of things.

Regarding the 3210 point, if you look at most "Smartphones", the 3210 is a better phone. Better voice quality, longer battery life, more durable etc.

(Note: I have a spare 3310 I have lying around for emergencies which looks more tempting every day...)

I understand your perspective, but I disagree that it's the right thing to do. Keeping Excel consistent over the last 15 years may be great for you you but it's terrible for, effectively, everyone else. Anyone learning MS Office for the first time will have to deal with outmoded interface paradigms, confusing icons, legacy feature cruft.

You should always be designing for your next customers, not your existing customers. Keeping legacy clients happy may make sense over the short term, but over the long term they'll slowly drag you down into irrelevancy.

So your mantra is "screw your existing customers"?

No. The software you sold them should continue to work into the future. I'm saying you shouldn't be afraid to make improvements and leave people behind if they refuse to keep up.

They're not rolling back the interface.

Everyone I know with a tablet has a PC and uses it heavily. The tablets are but a small diversion.

My extended is full of uncles and aunts who use their tablet and iPhone significantly more than their PC. I myself spend much more time surfing and writing emails from my iPhone than my PC.

Just another data point.

> Everyone I know with a tablet has a PC and uses it heavily.

Because everyone still has a pc, even if they bought it 5 years ago. As time goes on, we will see people ditching their PCs and just having a tablet. It is just about numbers.

I think the PC you are referring to is more close to the IHC he is talking about than his version of a PC. Remember the PC back in 1993 was two big gray boxes weighing 20kg each. Not a slim 13" macbook pro laptop.

More to the point, the PC of 1993 had almost all its data and functionality stored on its internal disk while a current PC relies far more on data and programs stored and running remotely. In 1993 we would be having this discussion through software written by AOL communicating with servers owned by AOL. If we decided to use software provided by different companies we'd not be able to even have a discussion.

Now, if I want to do something computationally heavy, I wish a computer (or a thousand of them) into existence, built from pieces I rent from a company such as Rackspace, HP or Amazon. My data, while existing locally, is also mirrored on several different places, accessible by almost any computing device connected to the internet, regardless of maker or software. Last time I lost a notebook computer, I was able to restart working on the next business day from the point I left (minus one commit I failed to do before leaving the office).

This is not your 1993 PC.

Comparing opinions and anecdotes does nothing. Everyone I know uses smartphones and tablets 90% of the time (outside of work).

> PC sales are declining and tablets are hyped.

> PC usage isn't declining. There is just no reason to upgrade any more.

And there won't be a reason to replace them 5 years down the road. PCs (as in lots of local software and data) will continue to be used while they last, but not longer. They will be used for longer and longer, until they break. Then they will be recycled.

> Now Windows 8 and surface aren't perfect, but they will become in time...

Time is something they don't have. If Windows 8 fails to generate enough interest in new usage scenarios for PCs, others will remain dominant in the post-PC era. Microsoft's strength is the 90%+ market share in an important segment. Make that share small or that segment unimportant and Microsoft will, once again, be both micro and soft.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com