Microsoft exec says PC 'not even middle-aged,' rejects post-PC label - Page 3

The idea that somehow PCs are going to go away is completely absurd. Can you imagine in offices all over the world people hunched over tablets prodding away with their chubby fingers at little screens covered in finger grease? Aside from the epic amounts of sore necks that would create, world productivity would drop by thousands of percent, and to what end?

Keyboards are the quickest way to input text, and anyone in an office needs to do that. A mouse or a wacom are vastly more precise than prodding at a screen with a finger. Having a separate, large screen which you never smear with finger grease at an ergonomic angle is obviously the only serious option, and having a box full of CPU and GPU power, and RAM is what any professional who works in CG or media production would need.

At home, sure, people can sit on their sofas and prod at their tablets to emails and play simple casual games, but that's where it ends. The moment someone needs to do actual work, they will fire up a PC.

The things we need from a PC are:

- performance
- connectivity
- storage

Right now, the iPad 2 is 1/7 the performance of an entry i5 MBA CPU-wise and 1/7 the performance of an NVidia 320M graphics-wise.

I'd expect the iPad 3 to be 1/5 the CPU performance and 1/3 the GPU performance. As time goes on, the gap will close until the iPad matches the current entry MBA and will do so in under 5 years. Performance marches on for desktops/laptops but the resources required for the tasks they perform don't always increase.

They can add a Mini-Displayport output for display connectivity. Peripherals I'm not sure but there's a chance they can switch to Intel chips and get a Thunderbolt port.

For storage, we should be hitting 128GB this year in mobile devices and this is only a cost limitation.

When it comes to software control, an iPad works just fine with a mouse (behaves a little bit like Lion don't you think?):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wklrVOFMKA

This all suggests that a setup like the following isn't so far-fetched:



It could even be an iPhone where the iPad is sitting.

If it uses x86 CPUs, it will run all of the current Mac apps without modification and Windows games would be simple to port. Not only simple to port but the marketshare is huge (10x larger than the Mac marketshare).

The iOS has lots of limitations (e.g no terminal, Finder, modality) but they are superficial and the OS can be made to behave differently when connected to a large display. If you screw up your phone by messing around with the OS, it's no big deal now with diskless recovery and small OS downloads.

Will lots of people be doing things with their computers in 8 years that would require more than a current Mac Pro? I'd say no. There will be the odd few who need 64-cores, 96GB of RAM and 20TB of storage but very, very few to the point that it may not be worth Apple (or Intel) catering to them.

It's a worrying prospect trusting Apple to define our future computing, given some of their choices regarding Pro Apps but I think in the end they'll do the right thing.

I agree. Android is a train wreck. Apple will grow and maintain an 70% market share in Mobility (phone, tablet, laptop) and in 2 years the Mobility market will be far larger than today's Desktop market. And Apple's Desktop market share will grow steadily to +20%.

IMHO, AAPL at $1000/share in 2013.

BUT it's more wishful thinking than anything else

corporate desktops as we know them, will soon be a thing of the past. We are virtualizing all of our desktops. Sure we need a desktop license still but as people use the desktop less, shared desktops are more common than before. It won't be long before we run the virtual desktops and thin app on a Linux desktop or bare metal.

We still buy office but we just pay maintenance and get the upgrades. Not as big Of a cash cow for them and not much growth there. I personally run OpenOffice on my Mac and the few people I know that bought office, they did so in a deeply discounted rate.

A sizable segment of the population will need a Desktop. I do all of my photo processing on my iMac. However people don't have the need to upgrade their desktops every 18 months and are much less motivated to upgrade to the latest office suite.... Plus there is bootlegging

There is that big segment of the population of course that use their desktops for web browsing, some email and entertainment. For those, iPads are more than adequate, cheaper, portable, couchable and the list goes on.

"Serving existing customers" is not important to huge corporations if they want to survive, grow and thrive.

"Serving the bottom line" for the long haul is the only thing that matters. Apple's job is to make money, and not to make a small (and shrinking) portion of the user base happy. They will go anywhere and do anything to grow profits in the long run. Sometimes, that means cutting loose some niche markets that distract them from more profitable ventures.

To put it short and sweet - Frank Shaw is right on the money.

Tablets and Smartphone are brilliant and all that Jazz, but I can't exactly write a 10k research paper on an iPad. I can sure as hell try but it would pail in comparison to a fully fledged Desktop or Notebook Personal Computer.

I know HP have pulled the plug, but that does't mean death to all machines with a physical keyboard on a desk either (this includes notebooks).

I've always thought the idea of "Post-PC" was complete bollocks. If I may be so blunt. These mobile devices are complimentary devices to quickly consume data along with your banana muffin in Starbucks. It is completely illogical to say personal computers are out the door - if thats the case then why do I still own a Desktop Computer (iMac) when my "almighty" iPad is sitting downstairs on the coffee table? I'll give you a hint - "Coffee Table".

The are one of the best selling vehicles, not no. 1 though. That title goes to the Toyota Carolla.

It actually presents a flaw in the "PC == Trucks" logic steve threw out there. Without trucks, where is the bread in my supermarket aisle?

You can't be for real.

That flaw as you see it was actually Steve's point. The average consumer doesn't need to drive a bread truck.

Two major problems here.

First, for Ballmer to say that Windows operates without compromise is an indication that he needs a smack with the reality stick. EVERYTHING involves compromises. He truly is out of touch with the real world.

More importantly, everyone's missing the biggest issue here. Whether we're in a post-PC era or a PC-plus era is completely irrelevant. What is relevant is that Apple has the entire industry dancing to their tune.

Microsoft can't focus on doing what they do well. They can't create their own marketing buzz. Rather, they're focusing on trying to convince people that Apple is wrong. Instead of arguing about whether it's post-PC or PC-plus (and there's really no difference), why aren't they creating their own markets and building on their own brand image?

HP? Just blew $100 M (not to mention the $1.2 B from buying Palm and all the other money they spent. Why? Because they let Apple dictate the terms of their success or failure. Instead of running their own business the way they want to, they're following in Apple's footsteps.

Even Intel. Why didn't they come out with this ultralight platform earlier? And why does it look exactly like an MBA? And why didn't they develop something new? Rather, they're following in Apple's footsteps. Or, talk about tablets. Why hasn't Intel created a tablet platform - or, at least, the products that other companies could use to create a tablet platform.


Wow. Could you be any more clueless if you tried? Let's see how many errors we can find:
1. Everything is tied to the Cloud? Nonsense. You can still use an iPad the way you did with earlier versions. Transfer data from your PC or Mac to the iPad. You don't even have to use the cloud if you don't want to.
2. iPad is a toy? Practical use is limited? Amazing how people are still using that one when all the evidence points the other way. The iPad is an incredibly powerful tool - as long as you focus on what it can do rather than SPECmarks. For example, it is being used:
- Doctor's offices
- X-ray evaluations
- Airline cockpits for navigation and other uses
- Business presentations
- Engineering
- Serious art and photography
- Business presentations
- Data collection
- Point of sale systems
- Educational
- Home automation

Thousands more if you stop spewing the same lies and actually open your eyes.

Great example of why Jobs wanted to change the paradigm with his 'post-PC era' comments.

You are trying to define an iPad and computer by specs, rather than what they can do. Who cares whether your system has a Geekbench score of 5,000 or 20,000 if it's able to do what you want in a form factor and price that meet your needs?

The iPad is not a PC - and was never intended to be. It's an entirely different device with different strengths and weaknesses. Sure, it does some of the same things that a PC does, but my car does some of the same things as a Boeing 747-800. That doesn't mean they're equivalent.

After a year and a half, it's it time for you to start looking at the iPad for what it IS rather than what your narrow-minded bigotry thinks it should be?

A couple of problems with your argument:
- biggest one being that you *assume* that everyones's work habits are identical to yours
- plenty of occupations rely on on-the-go real time transactions
- much of the workflow today has been adjusted for the desktop. For example physicians and other clinical people would have to either use a desktop at the end of the day of dictation of notes and transfer some handwritten documentation. Lawyers would have to wait for their break to fire up their cell card on their laptop to access their corporate reference libraries and other material... And so on. This no longer has to be this way

Sure desktops and their successors will be around for a while, but to say tha iPads are entertainment toys, reminds me of a Chinese proverb "Frog in the well" where the frog thought the sky was as big as he could see through the well.

This is why Steve Jobs is a visionary who transformed Apple to have market cap bigger than the euros zone banks, and others are simply making fools of themselves trying to imitate him.

Lol, thank you, I was.

Em, no one cares about "corporate IT".

(Except maybe IBM and Oracle, but not regarding PC and mobile appliance sales...)

The largest company in the world by market cap (Apple), makes 90% of its money through consumer, not corporate sales.

Corporate IT or the "enterprise" are cheapo PCs and bloated software for people forced to work in cubicles. Who the *&)& cares about that market segment?

Haha that made me laugh actually, sorry I wasn't more clear. The Mac 512 was a very early Mac but not the first. Hence my analogy ... in other words regarding iPad, you ain't seen nothing yet.

Nope. No, it isn't. Nope.

You don't see anyone in Science Fiction walking around with a laptop. They use a handheld or shirt-mounted device or access an unseen computer with their voice. When serious work needs to be done, they sit in a dedicated terminal.

There is room for both PCs and handhelds, even in the "future".

You might want to observe the iPads that are popping up where real work is done. It's amazing how quickly they are displacing PC's. For example our hospital has PC's on carts that are wheeled from room to room. Some doctors discovered iPads. Increasingly the PC carts are sitting in the corner collecting dust. Then there is the restaurant that replaced menus and their whole PC based order system with iPads. They still have a server (the truck) but the order entry stations (PC's) are gone. Makes one wonder about the long term career prospects for waiters and waitresses -- guess someone still has to bring the food to the table...

The iPad is being used in ways that surprise and astonish, and its just getting started as a platform.

I am happy to hear people who don't "get it". It means there is run left in Apple stock. Never thought we'd be neck in neck with ExxonMobil so quickly.

Well the people bringing the food to the table, at least around here, are food runners and not the same people as the waiters.

Yes there are plenty of people who don't get it! They still talk about apple Kool-aid when it's clear that Apple has broken through their fan base and is now as mainstream as it gets. Even the rivals will admit as much.

I just wish I would have bought more shares way back then.

Yep. It ain't your fathers hippy dippy company anymore making desktop machines for artists. They have gone mainstream, are a huge mega-corporation, and they are targeting mainstream consumers.

The geeks are living in the past. The artists and the power users will need to move on. Apple will increasingly make simple-to-use devices that target mom and pop.

"Post-PC" isn't the greatest name. Truthfully, it's a terrible name!

Unless you're intent on confusing people then saying "Post-PC" to describe a computing world that PC's are still very much a part of doesn't make sense.

"PC plus" is better but still not right. It makes it sound like a PC is the center of one's computing world with other devices hanging off it.

I like the name "Post PC-centric". The PC is still very much a part of the computing world, but it's no longer at the center of it.

Moving forward the hub of ones digital life will shift from the PC to the cloud, with a web of different devices connected to it and each other.

Balmer is on a river in Egypt....denial.

d

Upshot: the pro software business is logically something Apple could spin off into a separate business. It doesn't need to be apple's core competency as long as the software is given an opportunity to prosper elsewhere.

Mom and Pop don't drive a pickup truck -- pickup trucks are cumbersome and uncomfortable and provide them no advantage.

Mom and Pop have a pc because no alternative was available, or they don't have a pc at all.

The iPad will be [this generation] Mom and Pop's next or first... ...looking for an acronym, here... how about "M" -- M for Me?


The kids don't aspire to drive a pickup truck -- pickup trucks are too limiting and pickup trucks are for old folks (over 20).

Most kids have access to pcs at home or school, some even have their own pc -- but pcs aren't cool, pcs don't provide what they want. Pcs don't inspire their minds.

The iPad will be [this generation] kid's next or first... ...looking for an acronym, here... how about "M" -- M for Me?

And that's missing the entire point. Apple doesn't really care WHAT you call it. They just want to set the standards - and they are. While Microsoft, et al are arguing about what words should be used to describe it, Apple has created an entirely new market.

you obviously don't have an iPad because then you would know there are quite a few apps that are VERY productive, I work for a Manufacturing company and everyone there has one because we can view and edit our product all from the iPad. It is only a matter of time before the PC will be totally obsolete.

Not that it's my place to tell you how to run your life, but it's probably not the best idea to start attacking someone and calling them narrow-minded and a bigot just because you don't agree with them... and especially not when they have "Global Moderator" written after their username!

In any case he isn't even disagreeing with you.

The point he makes is that the iPad isn't capable of performing all the same tasks as the PC because it doesn't contain fast enough hardware.

However software demands are not increasing as fast as hardware improvements (Windows 8 will have lower system requirements than Windows Vista for example) so eventually in the not-to-distant future there will be some kind of convergence.

Having Ballmer leading M$ is the best way to make Microsoft going downhill.

You know Jobs in the one that started all this "post-pc" stuff right?
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(PS: He works for Apple)

Right now the iPad differs from a PC/Mac in three main ways:

1. hardware performance
2. Complexity / "openness"
3. Physical UI (screen size and mouse/keyboard vs touch)

The first two differences will fade over time, leaving just the third. At that point the main difference between an iPad and a Mac will be how you physically interact with it. I think from apple's point of view this is the most important difference by far. That is, to apple, a device is defined by how it is used. To Microsoft, a device is defined in terms of whether they are technically able to cram Windows onto it, and any theories of how that is best for customers are contrived post hoc to fit that perspective. So to apple, the ipad is not now and never will be a Mac (even though from a technical point of view one might argue that it is, or will be, or could be). But to microsoft, a tablet is a pc because it has the technical capability to run windows. If they could boot windows 8 on a phone, then a phone would also be a PC.

I think there is little question at this point that apple is right and Microsoft is wrong. Windows 8 tablets will never catch up to the iPad in terms of sales. Eventually, Microsoft will be forced to make the same retreat from the consumer space that HP just made and that IBM made years ago. Microsoft will still make a lot of money for a long time, servicing the corporate IT drones. unless of course apple decides to finally go after the "serious" business market. Then all bets are off.

That picture isn't as farfetched as you think.

You do know that he knows that and it doesn't change anything he said. "You" can call the post-pc era anything that you want... it doesn't change the fact that Apple has also given it a name, a name they can build around... a name, post-pc, they see as the future... a future they plan to define.

He's not thinking... give him a break.

Funny coming from a company whose ultimate movers and shakers and yay or nayers is a bunch of past mid-life crisis, close to retirement, "Is your father's PC" crowd who are tryng to pass off what in their eyes is hip, cool, and 'Where it's at!'! When that fails follow the competition with their also rans slightly modified as to try and not appear to be too blatant!

With the products put out and the past statements made and the stock price of the company, I wouldn't wear that badge of being a "MS Exec" too proudly!

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"M" won't scan metrically. MeC?

Benchmark scores directly relate to real-world performance whether it's storage throughput, amount of RAM, clock-speed, CPU architecture and so on. You might say that Apple tries to hide this from people but when they say the iPad 2 has 9x faster graphics than the iPad 1, what do you think that's based on?

Also consider at the iPad launch when people were saying the iPad was not meant to be productive, it was meant to be a consumer accessory. We now have iOS 5 at a stage where it can make the iPad a master device - uh, exactly what people were asking for to take on netbooks. You have productive apps like iMovie and the iWork apps too.

The iPad 2 could probably suffice as a desktop-replacement in terms of processing power for a lot of people given the SSD but it certainly needs more RAM. 256MB is not enough in a master device. I'd say 1GB minimum but I expect the iPad 3 to have 512MB. I think the Core 2 Duo chips would be the minimum level of desktop-class performance and the iPad 3 can reach this level.


Aren't you the one waiting for a plasma Apple television?

It's not really that far-fetched. There was a time when laptops weren't powerful enough to take over from desktops but over the past 5 years, they have reached this level. Over the next 5 years, tablets will be powerful enough to take over from laptops - at least at the entry-level.


I agree the phrase doesn't make much sense but it could refer to the fact that we have become so entrenched in a certain way of working with computers that we associate the current desktop with how a PC should work. The transition to a touch UI is a dramatic enough shift that it's probably ok to separate the two but it's all semantics. The term PC is used for a variety of different things.

What's important is just that mobile, touch-based devices are the way forward for computing and this is new.

I didn't call him a narrow-minded bigot because he doesn't agree with me. Rather, I called him that because he thinks that every computer should meet his view of what a computer should be. He thinks that a computer must have the power of a modern desktop computer - so the iPad must not be useful. He thinks that every computer should have enough graphics power to play Crysis (or whatever the latest macho game is), so the iPad must be useless.

Someone who can only see something through their own viewpoint is a bigot.

I have a setup that looks like that -- except instead of the display I have a new 27" iMac.

The Pegasus RAID is an amazing piece of kit -- easily could have been designed and built by Apple.

The key to all this may be Thunderbolt.

As I understand it, Thunderbolt is fast enough that you could offload all the heavy-llifting hardware CPU/GPU/RAM to one or more headless devices -- something like the new Minis.

And, I don't know if you need to use an Intel CPU in the iPad to get Thunderbolt -- I think you could add a Thunderbolt chip to the A6 or whatever,

If that is not possible, with an adapter or dongle, Thunderbolt can interface USB (whatever versions) are in the current or next iPad and iPhone.

In the pictured setup, I see some use for the iPad as an auxiliary display -- but the major use would be a horizontal, flexible multitouch control surface (custom sliders, buttons, knobs, fretboards, keyboards) and as a graphics tablet with or without a stylus.


A similar configuration using a maxed-out Mini, maxed-out iPad WiFi, 27" TB Display, Magic Mouse, KB, 2 TB Cables, Pegasus 12 TB RAID would cost $5,012.00 at the Apple Store before Taxes.

With the Pegasus 4 TB RAID it would be $4,012.00 at the Apple Store before Taxes.


My maxed-out iMac 27", Pegasus 12, Magic Mouse, KB, 2 TB Cables,cost $6,000.


And FCP X and Motion 5 just sing on that hardware setup -- noticeable, but minor, speed enhancement to FCP 7 and Motion 4,

i agree somewhat. most people could get by with a desktop running ios and don't need full blown os x. i think the 'truck' analogy is on the mark. less than 20 years. except for a minority i see full blown OS X and Windows 7 type desktops mostly gone in 5 years.


i think if apple made a keyboard/battery/dock for the ipad in the vein of the Asus transformer and allowed a mouse to work with ipad they would sell them as fast as they could make them and Air sales would drop a bit.