"Is the PC Dead?" - CNN report

[Paolo]

It's hard for some of us who work in a professional office environment to understand why Micro$oft doesn't admit failure and form a unit within the corporation to continue to support LANs, PCs and interface devices that use XP and have used it successfully for years...and charge users a continuing fee to support the OS. And yes, there are still some legacy programs that are widely used that need to run on DOS, as ancient as it is. XP, with all its faults will allow DOS to run fairly easily. The new oprerating systems being rammed down the throats of the imbedded base of customers/users simply don't meet the mininum criteria of pro users operationally. Is the old stuff trendy? No. Is it cutting edge? No. Does it work? Yes. Do business customers/users understand and like it? Mostly. So why not continue to support it rather than kissing off a huge market share? I don't get it.

I couldn't agree more, and I don't get it either.

Windows 2000 was perfect for our business, XP, not so much, but it's all right.

Like I said, I expect the new coming 7-PC to go into the dumpster by lunch on day one.

[talula]

-And you have to admit, very well!



Not sure if I'd have forked over the extra $$ for vBulletin over phpBB3, but it is truly a fine "home" for our mixed bag of nuts. Ok, no nuts, no bag, then mixed whatever it is!

phpbb was a pile of rotting junk when we started the forums. There was only one solution.

[Losethem (imported)]

To those reading this thread, don't confuse the PC with the OS, (operating system).

River

Unfortunately with Microsoft's recent bonehead move of launching Windows 8, it's nearly impossible to separate the two. Most PC's run Windows as their OS, so unless you're an advanced user (IE those of you who reinstall an OS using Linux or something else) which most people are not, it's going to impact the health of the overall PC market.

PC sales are down significantly since Microsoft launched Windows 8 so I'm failing to see how the two are not linked. I think that's how this conversation got placed into OS world - PC's generally equal Windows OS in the eyes of most people who use them.

--LT

[coinflipper_21 (imported)]

Unfortunately with Microsoft's recent bonehead move of launching Windows 8, it's nearly impossible to separate the two. Most PC's run Windows as their OS, so unless you're an advanced user (IE those of you who reinstall an OS using Linux or something else) which most people are not, it's going to impact the health of the overall PC market.

PC sales are down significantly since Microsoft launched Windows 8 so I'm failing to see how the two are not linked. I think that's how this conversation got placed into OS world - PC's generally equal Windows OS in the eyes of most people who use them.

--LT

I, for one, do a lot of drafting on my system. I've looked at new PC's using Windows 8, and so far, I can't see doing drafting with a touch screen oriented operating system. Oh, it looks good when you see it as a special effect in a movie, but try it in real life. (Yes, those half-room sized, holographic monitors you see in the movies still exist only as a special effect.) Drafting on a lap top or a tablet is difficult, with a smart phone like device impossible, despite the smart phone adverts. I need at least a 23 inch, high res monitor. Priced one that size or larger in a touch screen? Using a tablet or a laptop you have to add a monitor, full keyboard and mouse, and the capability to integrate other accessories, so when you get done what have you got?...a PC. No, for me, it's not dead yet.

[daifu-orchid (imported)]

Amen. We find Win 8 tablet likewise, cool in the ad, marginally fun for play, and just not up to it for work. The proposed demise of the desktop from 8 makes me ever more cautious -so much of the professional's applications and interactions -for better of worse- are expected through a desktop. We had an i-pad-dependent rep visit us last week, and he found that he couldn't easily interact with a usb stick, print to a local printer, and when he moved to a part of the building without internet access, his device was almost useless. I helped him out in a jiffy with my $190 netbook running a semblance of Win 7 and Linux. He thanked me, reminded me how cool his tablet is, as watched the missing everyday functions. My, was he pissed!

-But he wasn't too sure who to be pissed at. Who's to blame for his involuntary nullification?

So, my 2 cents: the PC design is elderly. We still mostly use the same basic hardware as the IBM XT/AT. Anyone date them? Is it easy to better this hardware? Very easily, but the M$ marketing machine has been naturally supportive of the M$ investment. Many remarkable designs have come and gone over the years. The Amiga had much to recommend it, except its Company and its 2-bit control bus making more than 4 expansion slots a challenge. Now we have an ascendant Mac culture, maybe suffering doubts. New? You can't call a re-skinned BSD unix made to look like toaster Mac, new. But it works, mostly.

There seems a design vacuum. There are certain functions necessary every day, and also the need to look forward to increasing connectivity and multimodal input and security questions that are only just beginning. Maybe the way forward is a kernel that can compile easily to varied hardware, and an API that encourages innovation and compatibility. Android/*nix comes close, but Android becomes a more and more closed system as it ages. An open source kernel would allow the PC dead question to be moot. It should be possible to run a PC desktop or dispense with the desktop without greatly harming compatibility.

Anyone want to form a company? -there's not a lot to stop a well thought-out challenger!

[daifu-orchid (imported)]

phpbb was a pile of rotting junk when we started the forums. There was only one solution.

Still somewhat putrescent, but now a stable BBS-only. we run version 3 without much difficulty, and link it to Wordpress used mostly as a poor CMS. Fanstastic job here with vB!

[Kortpeel (imported)]

No, the desktop PC is not dead. Merely that every user who needs one has got one and sales have dropped as a consequence. My own PC started off as a Pentium 486 running on the last version of MS Dos. Version 6.1 I think. Since then everything on it has been replaced at least once including the case, most of it several times. The only original thing on it is the A drive which no longer works any more but that doesn't matter.

Operating system changes are only made when absolutely necessary. Say after a hard disk crash and the man who repairs finds it easier to put on a current OS than a vintage one. I personally thought there was nothing wrong with XP but now I'm updated to Win7 which, having got most of it figured out, I'll stick with for as long as I can.

[daifu-orchid (imported)]

I think you probably speak for many: stability of environment, while enjoying current standards of performance. The PC hardware is now older than many (even most?) of the members here. Things can be done better. Seems that now hardware virtualization is so easy, either on your own PC or in the cloud, we don't need to retain the original physical design as long as what runs appears to see a familiar environment. The advantages are many, including ease of update of hardware and software for best performance, concurrent OSs to make interoperability easy, and many advantages for the developer. The big boys have been heavily into virtualization a while now; maybe time for the mass market too.

[Losethem (imported)]

They can have my actual, sitting in my house, hard drive when they pry it from my cold dead fingers. I'll NEVER use cloud computing. I want complete control over my materials instead of paying for the privilege of letting Microsoft, Google, or others store it and then browse it however they want potentially stealing things I keep that are my intellectual property or have my copyright on them.

--LT

[Riverwind (imported)]

Businesses usually swap out PC's for all their employees every 18 months to 3 years. One thing Businesses will not do it upgrade to a new PC that has an OS that can not be used with their current systems. I suspect that businesses will demand that the new PC's they buy have windows 7 on them or they might finally be considering moving to an open system, either way what ever PC's they decide to buy the OS (operating system) must be compatible with all of the other systems that companies run, and in that lies the problem.

I remember when we got a personal system and had to install it on every PC that our staff used, the first thing we discovered was that one of the buildings down the street was still using and Internet Explorer that was so old the software would not work, we had to upgrade the IE which caused another problem in that some of the software they were using would not work on a newer version of IE. We only converted 6 machines, and over the next year, that division had to upgrade all their software to bring it current.

Now lets look at windows 8, a touch screen system. Every single system that a business uses must be compatible with windows 8 for it to be used, Businesses just don't put on new OS, they test it first with every single piece of software that all of their divisions use.

Windows 8 being a touch screen system will cause businesses to reject it out of hand, and if they were going to buy a new group of PC's this would be put on hold until a decision is made as to which OS they would run, and if that decision is to move to an Open System and away from Windows, believe me that the PC department will be testing it for months before it goes company wide.

So it does not surprise me that PC sales are down, Windows 8 asks a lot of companies to reconsider the direction they will take in the future, not a snap decision.

NOTE: I built two new identical PC's this last January, I sent one to my son and one was for me, my decision to use Windows 7 Pro was based on how I planed to use these machines, windows 8 was never a consideration.

River