I attach a chart that shows pc sales beginning to stagnate while sales of smartphones and tablets are rocketing. More and more people are realising they don't need a PC and more - not even a laptop.

 

Times they are a'changing

If we loose PC's and laptops kiss home Flight Simulation goodbye...

 

 

 

Time to do like 1975 and go down to your local FBO if you want to learn about flying. The simmers in England will be out in the cold because in this scenario access to General Aviation in the real world is less of an option than it is in the US. Fuel costs for everyone could kill interest for many going forward as well. I'm amazed today at how interest has dwindled around the world when it comes to aviation. I was in awe of it as a kid but today's youths could care less if you look at the level of interest. In a world with no PC simming outlet and FBO prices out of reach for most flying by any means will be something a fortunate few can do. Flight Simulator could go the way of Falcon 4.0 where a much smaller incarnation of this community is all that keeps simming alive. Imagine 10 years from now downgrading your computer (if it's even possible) to Windows 7 just so you could enjoy FSX/FS9. I truly hope Microsoft get's back into the simming game because the future is not looking good especially if tablets/phones become the norm and PC's the exception... Microsoft could influence this just like their influencing today's turn of events. You can argue the point about smart devices but a stellar version of Windows coupled with stellar applications could keep PC's around for quite some time. What's prompted me for instance to upgrade every few years was a new version of Flight Simulator. I haven't had that reason in the last 4 years now because there's nothing worth mention for the PC. PC's allowed depth to a title an XBOX can't provide. Flight Simulator was the last title that did that. Before we had NASCAR, Falcon 3/4.0, EF2000, and Total Air War. You can't get that level of depth in tablet/iphone Apps and XBOX titles. Maybe like with the music industry the Golden Age of software has past us. Let's hope not...

Side note, the Falcon online community is alive and well and we are here:

 

http://www.benchmarksims.org/forum/content.php

 

 

Flight Simulator could go the way of Falcon 4.0 where a much smaller incarnation of this community is what's keeping simming alive.

More and more people are realising they don't need a PC and more - not even a laptop.

 

Your chart suggests nothing of the sort - "don't need"?  I don't see the logic that increased  mobile device sales (which are cheaper than PCs) means that people no longer use or want a desktop computer?  Sorta like saying no one will buy a Truck because gas is too expensive, therefore Trucks will no longer exist ... I have a Truck AND I have a Lexus Hybrid ... two vehicles with very different purposes.  You are introducing false logic that suggests people can only have ONE or the OTHER?  Which is simply just not the case.

 

A more meaningful statistic would be device usage ... such as 91% of all mobile internet traffic is for social sites, 9% work related.  Or 8% of ALL internet traffic is mobile, 92% is desktop/laptop.

 

Mobile is just another device being added to our populations existing list of devices ... the same predictions were made that the PC is dead when consoles first hit the market and yet decades later the desktop PC still exists.

 

At what point does having a mobile device exclude a PC?  Your assertions are not valid from the data you presented.

 

But again, if people keep using (complete PC system sales) and ignore the Billions and Billions and Billions of online sales for PC components (many of which cost 5X more than a mobile device) then your missing out on the real "value" of a PC industry.  And "market value" is far more important -- and again that's not defined by PC system sales exclusively. 

 

 

I don't see the logic that increased mobile device sales (which are cheaper than PCs) means that people no longer use or want a desktop computer?

 

You may not but others do.

 

 

Traditional PC Market Predicted to Decline 7.6 Percent as Change in Consumers' Behavior Drives Transition to Tablets and Ultramobiles....

 

The proliferation of lower-priced tablets and their growing capability is accelerating the shift from PCs to tablets...

 

As a result, the traditional PC market of notebooks and desk-based units is expected to decline 7.6 percent in 2013 (see Table 1). This is not a temporary trend induced by a more austere economic environment; it is a reflection of a long-term change in user behaviour

 

 

http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2408515

 

 

 

 

You may not but others do.

 

Then "others" will be as successful as Microsoft is with Windows 8

mgh, on 11 Apr 2013 - 12:15 PM, said:

You may not but others do.

 

 

http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2408515

 

No we don't ("You may not but others do"). Predictions don't always mean the findings are set in stone especially when I read in 2014-2017 a steep incline in Windows OS sales. All other assessments point to a decline in future Windows sales. Corporate America will not remove PC's from their desks at the rate predicted here. Where we are going to see PC sales climb is after XP support is cut. All businesses will have to upgrade to Windows 7 (more 64bit versus 32bit) which they are more than willing to do. Allot of government agencies will hold out on XP for as long as they can but the apps that make business and government work are all PC based. The only hang up is 64bit which slowly updates are coming around or the 32bit apps work in 7. There is no way in the next four to five years the PC will become all but irrelevant. Microsoft's Windows 8 may be out the door in favor of a more common platform like a Windows 9 with the ability to turn 'Metro' off but a dying PC market will not happen. What we are seeing now is people and business sticking to what they have because it works just like what we've seen with Flight and our choice to stick with FS9/FSX because for the community those options work for our needs. Software has advanced enough where software/hardware companies have to work for our dollar versus we just buy because it's new. Just like the housing bubble it had to come to an end sometime... Put America aside the world as a whole doesn't just buy because it's new. Businesses are already tied down with MS licensing fees for everything they use. They don't have time to shut down business and install Windows 8 (or 7 for that matter) on every desktop and upgrade all their servers. So many are mis-reading these numbers. Times are indeed changing but the change is 'mediocrity' no longer sales because everyone can use what they already have...

It's always helpful to read what's actually written before jumping onto a hobby horse and galloping of in the wrong direction. What I wrote was:

 

 

More and more people are realising they don't need a PC any more - not even a laptop.

 

 

 

And that is perfectly true.

 

Many people used  desktops and later laptops primarily to surf the web, send and receive emails and interact on social sites. They made very little use of a PCs other facilities. Those people are now realising  that they can do what they want on tablet more conveniently and no so,longer need a PC and won't replace their existing PCs

 

 There are also others who put off buying a PC because of the perceived complexity but probably would have bought one eventually. Now they will use a tablet.

More and more people are realising they don't need a PC and more - not even a laptop.

 

If I may jump in.....I agree with this 100%

 

It doesn't mean the desktop is dead, it just means the desktop is going back to a niche market that it once was when we were using 80486's. It was around the Pentium era that everyone jumped on the bandwagon, and now they are jumping off. I prefer it that way as I want PC's to be reserved for the small market that we are.

 

Gerry you last comment pretty much sums it up. All the things like Email and Facebook can be done on a tablet now so that is were the masses are going. I like it better this way. Leave the PC to the serious users like us.

Watching Microsoft at the current moment is like reliving my past experience over 20 years ago working at Kodak, think where Kodak was 20, 25 years ago in the camera and Film industry and look back at the missteps Kodak took over the years and see where they are now, and back then back when I worked at Kodak their future hinged on one moment that to me is frozen in time, the day they gave away the first digital camera because they couldn’t get their prototype to take a picture that had the same clarity as their film camera. Back then it was some simple stuff to fix but they couldn't or wouldn't follow through with trying to advance the research for it choosing to instead to continue with film, I still have the article (I think) in a box somewhere where the new ceo of Kodak back then said the film camera would never die....ever, well.

 

Somewhere, for some reason someone at Microsoft looked at Apple and saw the type of monk sire business model they have and figured out how to make a new Microsoft that would mimic that, has anyone been watch Apple latly, seems their stock is taking a turn also which I would have to assume people have caught on to the IPod version 1 won't run the apps that the iPod version 3 will and if they own the IPod 1 they have to ~upgrade to the IPod version 3 or...the Four, they have to, they have to buy a new device from apple to continue the life style they have adapted to, which the hard sell for photographers back twenty, twenty five years ago was you’re not going to use costly film that you have to have developed you just going to use this device called a memory card and your computer.

 

I work back then at Kodak and I was part of the first ‘group’ to ever to be laid off from the company, and our layoff was a staged to gain sympathy from the local community with a motto for the ones who still worked there to work harder, it didn’t matter.

 

When I left, I went back into trucking as a owner operator, carrying a NEW top of the line digital camera, which some of the thousands of pictures I took across the country can still be seen on the internet and I have them backed up mostly with CD’s full of picture I took and on Skydrive , which none of them had to be processed and that is what killed Kodak.

 

I live next door to Kodak Park, which has been chopped up and cut up in sections and now houses a Ménage à trois of different companies, even a RV dealership, and I have watched the buildings that where there get demolished to relive their tax burden by returning the space to green area and the kick in the shins was they sold the machine I worked on to Fuji  and the broker I was leased to shipped it, and I hauled it to the pier to be put on a ship. Digital wasn’t what killed Kodak, Kodak slit it own throat when they stop listing to their customers choosing to instead to try to please their investors, which again you might want to take a look at Apple, think of Microsoft and keep in mind the slippery slope  Kodak took  and where they ended up.

  Microsoft has made some rather embarrassing decisions since the epic announcement that they had to write off a rather huge bad investment which in doing so they chose to dump some of their titles they had and they chose to continued to some other tiles further, which I can’t understand why giving the times and the current headlines in the news, someone hasn’t turned to them with a camera and a microphone and asked them, “seriously what are you thinking”. Then again I am sure they would responded that the need for the title they are developing will never, ever end…just like film, but with a wider more deadlier ending.

 

If you look at Win-8 I cannot help but to see the connection to Apple and the shared concept between the devices and the product line apple has, which Microsoft is trying to mimic, yet they still like Kodak did, chose to head down that path without listen to the customer  while they put on the show like a three dollar side show girl for their investors.

 

The slow death of Microsoft is inevitable, and the Head of the board of directors couldn’t care enough to try to save it what he built, choosing to instead to try to save the world.        

 

 

Microsoft is chasing other companies' dreams.

 

Which leads one to suspect they no longer have any of their own.

 

 

The one player in the house of cards that I left out was Google, which they have manage to create an app for just about anything that doesn’t need approval from a device manufacturer.

Basically the dream of the all in one concept can be blamed on generational development where my generation was happy with the easy to manage and add on to desk top tower systems, which even those have become smaller and more powerful over my years. My wife’s is ten years younger me and her generation comes with a completely  different idea of nice which would be considered the mini tower system that can fit on a mini desk that has a slightly uncomfortable min office chair to go with it, however she doesn’t like miniskirts to my dismay.

The nineteen year old daughter would be the all-in-one generation who is happy with the cloud, and a number of different devices to serve her purposes, right down to this new thing called Google glass that would complement all her devices because they all use the Google os, and that is who the other two pc manufactures are competing against which could only be described as a something of an abnormality when it comes  to being a cross over OS because of who provides it isn’t a manufacturer rather a service provider that has manage to touch every aspect of life that their users live.

 

The goal it appears to be for all three to provide service to Geordi La Forge from the show Star Trek: The Next Generation, which the all the device including the visor only needs the star ship, in this case the all to infamous cloud which currently has a wire connected to it somewhere in the communication system that the cloud needs to provide this service.

 

I find it ironic that I thought of Geordi La Forge from the show, Star Trek: The Next Generation because it is that next generation that is now making me sound like an old man, to them it is cool to me it is quit strange. This next generation lives in a transparent world which could be looked at as a fish bowl, their whole world is somewhere on display for all to see and depending on where it is, sometimes only controlled by the six degrees of separation but still viewable to the whole world, I like my privacy which the next generation doesn’t care.

 

The next generation could care a less and about a simulation of any kind, games to them are something that is now live and with friends using their cell phones that uses apps and not programs, which they play these game throughout the day, even at work.

 

Which the operating system for the next generation is the transformation Microsoft is trying to become which they are about 5 years behind Google os and they are burden by their devices, where the competition isn’t burden by a device because Google adapts to a device and Google’s os is extremely flexible where as windows 8 isn’t, which being flexible and adaptable is what the next generation will want and Microsoft will fail miserably much the same as Kodak did.

Microsoft needs a Lee Iaccoca type CEO as the company is bloated as falling behind the times.  Microsoft does not change in the next 5 years they will end up like Kodak or Dodge bankrupt.   

Microsoft needs a Lee Iaccoca type CEO as the company is bloated as falling behind the times.  Microsoft does not change in the next 5 years they will end up like Kodak or Dodge bankrupt.   

 

 

This always happens when the original leader steps down or retires.  Have you watched the Disney channel lately.  How far that company has fell from Walt's vision is amazing.  As of now their a big bloated repository of swallowed up companies.  I have little hope for Star Wars but that's another topic...  Microsoft is doomed to failure if they don't hurry up and get Ballmer out of there...

It is as if the PC had peeked years ago and is now going the other way, but it will not disappear. What will disappear is Microsoft's share of the PC market if they don't take the traditional PC user seriously. We are a stuborn bunch that can adapt to new things if we don't like the direction they are taking.

 

MS underestimated us in the past when they underestimated the Internet back in Windows 98....they had to release Win98SE for the internet users they overlooked