Stick a fork in it: Windows is done
zdnet.com
zdnet.com
But what I mean when I say I'm afraid is that people listen to these articles. They believe what is said and trumpet it across the skies for everyone to hear. I'd gamble more than 90% of the consumer market are content consumers exclusively; they don't see the need or benefits to having a powerful machine that lives upon your desk. Its not mobile, its not sleek. What happens next? Manufacturers follow that market and begin to neglect the ways of old.
I never would believe the PC ever disappears but what I can see happening is it becoming a more niche market. Prices will go up and selection will go down as a result. It wont be soon but it will eventually happen. Perhaps I'm just afraid of change like my father before me. Perhaps I'm a bit too stubborn for my own good but whatever the reason I fear the day when finding a PC and OS modern enough to fit my needs isn't as easy as it is now. Until then I'm just going to keep on hoping the strong PC gaming market keeps the platform afloat.
It's interesting because the 1975 version of the comment would be absolutely right. The PC did herald the end of the mainframe as we knew it. Sure, they're still alive, sort of, but it's not like it once was. And yet, the transition ultimately ended up being wonderful. Maybe this new transition will be great as well. Let's hope so.
If there is ever a drop in demand large enough that would render the desktop computer market small enough to halt production, I would bet that you will find that you no longer use it for productivity either. I'm a developer too and that is not a niche market. It's easy to think of it as such but the reality is that old-fashioned productivity isn't going anywhere. Tablets have replaced non-consumption and at best complement desktop machines.
Employees stuck in offices use productivity software. There are so many settings in which notebooks and desktops aren't practical, but tablets are. Places where specialized software is required. Tablets deployed in retail, healthcare, defense, airplanes, hospitality, parcel delivery, onsite sales and repair, city councils, classrooms, elderly homes, etc etc.
Also, even productivity software works better on tablets in some cases. Nowadays, I use OmniPlan for iPad instead of Microsoft Project and Apple Numbers for iPad instead of the OS X version. I make website mockups on the iPad instead of on the desktop. For what I need to do, it's faster and more convenient.
They get the full-featured operating system that they're used to and they can operate the full OS via touch, pen, keyboard or mouse. I've got one and I love it. No walled garden for me, thanks!
This is partially what I meant by "non-consumption." In few if any of those environments are tablets replacing desktops. They're making those jobs easier to do by integrating software where previously it wasn't possible. Perhaps it's replacing a clipboard and pen, but not really a desktop.
"Also, even productivity software works better on tablets in some cases. Nowadays, I use OmniPlan for iPad instead of Microsoft Project and Apple Numbers for iPad instead of the OS X version. I make website mockups on the iPad instead of on the desktop. For what I need to do, it's faster and more convenient."
This may be true, but I would argue that this is what would be defined as a niche market. People in corporate America using Word and Excel is not.
However I do recognize that this might not always be the case. The tablet may come to surpass the desktop in enabling productivity which is why I said that if manufacturers ever halted desktop production, he/she would likely not be using desktops for productivity anymore, either. Chances are what he/she does isn't all that unique compared to the overall market.
Do you mean something that runs x86 architecture? Something with keyboard/mouse as the primary interface? Something with interchangeable commodity components? Something with lots of local storage?
Here's a quote from one of his other articles, "I can't say that I've looked at Windows 7 nearly as closely as Kennedy has, but I've looked at Windows 7 enough to know that it's no real improvement on Vista."
It's too bad that "journalists" can be consistently wrong with impunity.
That said, based on his track record, Windows will probably have a bright future.
But that said, Windows 8's improvements are pretty much all under the hood: they're not user-facing. It's no wonder people don't see them, because the improvements are not designed to be seen. Unfortunately, that also means they can't really be marketed except in very niche scenarios.
I think that Win8 could be saved if MS just published a few registry tweaks, combined with a checkbox saying that "No, I don't want to use Metro, ever."
But it would require someone in upper management to admit they were wrong. They would get a bad review. Sadly, it's better to let customers go and let revenue slide than to admit that you were wrong, in a company like Microsoft.
PC sales may be mostly done. A desktop that was bought 10 years ago can still run fine today - and many still are.
We reached a point in computing where upgrading doesn't make that big of a difference. You can use the same machine for a decade or more without problem if you're an end user, especially given so many rich web apps that don't require high processing power.
Our iPad 2 is now almost exclusively the province of my toddler daughter.
In an office environment, she really doesn't need more.
Thing is I think we all believe that the demand for desktops or high end laptops is probably going to flatline. The classic example is graphics cards for games. 15 years ago, a generation of cards made a massive difference to the quality of the games visuals. Running Half-Life with software rendering was awful compared to my Voodoo2.
Nowadays the progress is purely a small refinement, my desktop from 3 years ago is still more than adequate. Meanwhile the other end of the scale people don't want a proper PC, they want a locked down, does what it can simply, with no side-effects life.
But to suggest the end of Windows is to ignore their core business model.
I struggle to think of anything that Windows could add to its functionality that would make me want a new version.
What I'm looking for is a form factor change to be part of the next wave (Post-PC as Apple says). Something I can carry around and have all my files on and be connected then plug in for bigger screens and more power.
Keeping all my files in the cloud is still a backup thing and not a live thing. Connections cost too much and aren't very reliable.
Windows 7 and OS X 10.8 are fine desktop OSes that one can continue to use for years to come. However, I can think of two improvements for future versions:
* Better file systems. Windows was supposed to get WinFS, OS X was destined to adopt ZFS. Unfortunately, neither of those panned out. HDDs are on their way out, we need native support for a file system that is reliable and is optimized for SSD use. Preferably, both Apple and Microsoft use the same open source solution for all their platforms, but that's not likely to happen.
* APIs to aide cooperation between mobile apps and desktop apps and TV screens. Right now, there are few good examples of mobile apps adding to the desktop experience, or the other way around. At the moment, only Adobe Nav[1] and Adobe Color Lava[2] come to mind. This is something Apple en Microsoft need to solve, not make each developer do so for themselves. Look at the brilliant folks at Panic and their Status Board app: they spent months working on a solution to display high quality graphics from an iPad to a TV screen [3]; those things should be much easier.
[1] http://www.photoshop.com/products/mobile/nav
[2] http://www.photoshop.com/products/mobile/colorlava
[3] http://www.panic.com/blog/2013/03/the-lightning-digital-av-a...
Real keyboards are nearly gone from the smartphone space. Several people I have spoken to assert that keyboards will also be gone from the workplace in a few years.
I have some ideas on how to enhance a real keyboard to make it more productive and ergonomic. My key motivation behind these comes from I myself wanting such a thing. However, I have been having mixed feelings about pursuing these due to mixed feedback from friends, primarily because they think keyboards/PCs are going away, or that getting external funding in this space would be nearly impossible.
Do you have any advice on whether this area is worth pursuing or not? Are PCs and real keyboards going to go away, or there are here to stay as OP says?
The author states that desktop PC sales are declining, tablet sales are increasing, yet also states that sticking with Metro makes MS "idiots". Are they supposed to use the desktop UI on tablets? Of course not.
Desktop and laptops are shrinking as the primary platform of computing, and with it Windows. Shrinking, not dying.
Someone could absolutely disrupt Microsoft in the low-price market (and who knows, Chromebook might get there) but we're not going to see everyone switch to Macs just because the new Windows isn't great.
I predict that Windows is going to be increasingly more available on smaller mobile devices. Not much of a prediction because to me it's obvious that's the direction they're heading in.
Microsoft should have their Windows people concentrate on the PC. Make it the best desktop device possible.
They need a separate mobile group. Keep Balmer as CEO but when it comes to mobile do the opposite of whatever he says. It worked for George: http://www.tv.com/shows/seinfeld/the-opposite-2326/
You could look it up...
My personal theory for some of the loss in sales is that PCs are lasting much much longer than they used to. I just recently retired a laptop after using it for 6 years and am still rocking a quad core PC that is over 5 years old. My earlier computers were replaced earlier.
"The Real Reason No One's Buying PCs Anymore: They've Gotten Too Good" — http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/04/12/why_pc_sa...
So the answer to your question is a resounding no.
10 Years ago, if you had told me that a linux-based OS would be beating Apple and Microsoft's offerings, I would have called you a pie-in-the-sky dreamer. Today, we're celebrating the natural conclusion of the Halloween Documents in pure Ghandi style; They ignored us, then they laughed at us, then they fought us. Now we've won.