Wikipedia defines the PC as, "A personal computer (PC) is a general-purpose computer, whose size, capabilities, and original sale price makes it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end user with no intervening computer operator."
That statement reveals much about the origins of the PC, in an environment where mainframe systems built around the concept of distributed computing was the norm. The PC was built to stand alone from these systems, so it was design for the personal use and operation of an individual.
Personal computing has gone through a significant number of iterations since the IBM XT and before, with major overhauls of the basic concept and what a computer is capable of doing.
However, has the arrival of smartphone and tablet technology heralded the end for the traditional PC, or will it morph into something new and embrace the biggest changes yet?
Personal Computer RIP?
Its difficult to navigate through technology websites and printed magazines without seeing what are pre-emptive obituaries for the PC. Hell, Ive even written a couple in here myself on the subject.
Those stories promote the idea that the PC is terminally ill and not likely to be down the pub ever again. The evidence for this opinion is the genuine decline in sales, a real trend that those who build and ship PC hardware are experiencing.
Always alongside those details of the PC problems are other reports that in the same period tablet sales have been very buoyant. Therefore its not just economic conditions; people are really choosing not to buy a PC and opting for a tablet instead.
The easy conclusion to make is that the PC is dying and the mobile device is sucking the life from it like a vampire. However, the shift in emphasis from one part of the personal computer market to another isnt a new concept; its been going on from the very earliest days.
If youre 40 years old or more, then youll recall a phase when all PCs were beige boxes that sat underneath their monitors, occupying desk space. It was a while before PC designers considered the notion of standing them upright, and now almost all desktop systems (a confusing description for them, really) are floor standing. Horizontal enclosures gave way to vertical ones, and those previous designs died out, becoming obsolete.
That begs the question: is the PC dying out or transforming into something else?
Evolution Or Devolution?
The growth of the tablet computer has been breathtaking, especially considering that Microsoft delivered them more than a decade ago and hardly had any takers. The critical factor in their success was touch-specific interfaces and applications, rather than a standard Windows interface thats difficult to use with fingers.
What was also critically different about these new mobile computers was that they werent based on Intel processors and didnt carry with them the legacy baggage that the modern PC is saddled with.
If you were to create a family tree of these devices, then the iPads ancestors were the iPhone and the iPod, and its most remote relatives were the ARM-powered Apple Newton and maybe the
Acorn Archimedes.
From that perspective, theyre not directly related to the PC on any modern level, although they fit into some of the same niches that the PC occupies in the computing ecosystem.
That suggests that the PC isnt evolving into something new; its being ousted by a distant relative. But is that a too simplistic analysis? Much of what makes these devices special often evolved inside a desktop PC.
Flattered By Imitation
If we dismantle a tablet or smartphone, well find an interesting mix of technologies that are also in a PC, along with less familiar parts. The commonality comes with technology like LCD, USB, HDMI, SoC fabrication (system on chip), analogue-to-digital converters and DDR3/flash memory controllers. These are common to all modern computer systems but many originated or were designed for PC applications.
Without the evolution of the PC, the technology to make these devices and make them using such small fabrication technologies just wouldnt exist. What they also incorporate is other technologies, mostly to do with power management, which have their origins in phone and MP3 player devices, although these also migrated into laptop systems some time ago.
While the iPads true linage lies elsewhere, it is really the bastard child of the PC and the mobile phone. By having a foot in each of those camps, it has been able to build on the graphical computing models of the PC, while delivering these in a massively simplified mobile package.
Starting with the basic tablet concept, its possible to add a proper keyboard, external storage (physical or cloud depending on the specific hardware) and install a suite of office applications. Surely it then becomes a PC? If only it was that simple.
Owning both a tablet and a PC, you soon realise that there are things that the mobile platform doesnt do or do well. The desktop PC, by its very nature, has some advantages that cant be matched, even if the comparison between tablets and laptops is a more debateable call.
The Unique Things A PC Can Do
With the market for tablets and hybrid devices expanding, and those for the PC shrinking, its worth spending a little time to consider that there are plenty of things that you really need a desktop PC to achieve. Here is just a few:
- CAD/CAM applications.
- Professional video editing.
- Colour accurate photo editing.
- Desktop publishing.
- Multi-display applications.
- Act as an intelligent firewall/bridge.
- Run multiple operating systems using a hypervisor.
- Proper concurrent multitasking.
- 3D animation design and rendering.
- Manage infinitely expandable storage.
Most of these involve high levels of computing power that only desktop workstations can deliver with the limits of modern battery technology. While some might argue that many of these problems could in theory be resolved using clever software, I cant see that anyone using multiple screens in a trading hall is likely to exchange them for a bag of iPads any time soon.
However, the biggest party trick that none of the tablet or smartphone designs weve seen so far deliver is the one thats kept the PC so popular for so many years. Its ability to be hardware upgraded.
Upgradability
If theres one single feature above all else that propelled the PC to leave all the other systems in the 80s behind it, its upgradability. The card slot concept borrowed from IBMs mainframe systems allowed all new hardware features to be bolted on, opening up entirely new markets for the machines.
A testament as how well this worked is the video card market, where huge amounts of computing power can be added to a PC, accelerating the on-board performance dramatically. But thats just a small amount of what expansion possibilities exist, and its the exploitation of this thats kept the PC on the top of the pile until now.
Whats Changed?
To understand that, lets look at one typical upgrade that many people have purchased if theyve owned a PC for a while: the TV adapter.
The very first of these devices were cards on the PC that needed bus power to function, along with software. And then USB came along, and suddenly they no longer needed to be in the PC, opening them up to laptop systems that arent normally very expandable. Since then, the really big change has happened: theyve almost disappeared altogether, because TV is streamed and you dont need any y hardware to pluck the signals out of the ether.
This isnt just true of TV adapters, because lots of physical add-ons that we normally would adorn our PCs with have gone the same way, because technologies like USB, eSATA and Thunderbolt have all served to move the PC bus outside the computer, and more pointedly the era of cloud computing is demonstrating that the ultimate add-on is actually a huge invisible bank of computer power on a distant continent that you can connect to remotely.
In its presentation launching the Xbox One, Microsoft made much of the Azure servers that will form a critical part of the experience, which will only partly be generated by the hardware in the box.
The ultimate upgrades are software and remote services, and they might soon be capable of addressing almost any need that would have previously required a physical upgrade. If that comes to pass, the only need for PC slots will be for very specialist requirements, so most people wont want or need an upgradable PC.
It could be argued that the PCI bus or its future equivalent wont need to be physically part of the PC, as the notion of a stand-alone computer is now behind us. However, many people still like the idea of growing their system to meet their needs in an organic fashion, even if it isnt really a necessity these days.
Redefining The PC
For at least the past 20 years or more, any definition of the PC would probably include the words Intel processor and x86 architecture. There have been exceptions, like Apples flirtation with the PowerPC architecture and all those Unix workstations that used MIPS and Sun Sparc technology.
Technically, these were all personal computers, but not traditional PCs. To be in that classification they needed to be able to run a Microsoft OS (though Windows did appear on the PowerPC briefly) and adhere to the card slot and architecture norms of the time.
In trying to find a definition for the PC, youre always confronted by rapid evolution of standards that have brought us through many major hardware changes and epochs.
Cards were once ISA, then EISA, MCA, VESA, AGP, PCI and then PCI Express; each wasnt compatible with others and with each change the bus architecture of the PC altered radically. PCI Express is now at its third generation, and it will continue to change, so whats left to hang the PC hat on?
Normally Id suggest that definition lies between Intel and Microsoft, or rather it did until recently. Two recent developments have now entirely thrown into the air their relationship as companies and their traditional common ground, the PC.
Microsoft, for its part, made its own computers for the first time ever: the Surface RT and Surface Pro. These are now to be replaced with the Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2, with hardware refreshes.
Whats fascinating about these devices is that the Surface RT and Surface 2 dont use Intel processors; instead theyre ARM based. That means that 50% of Microsofts first computer systems arent PCs by common consensus. They run a version of Windows 8 (and soon 8.1), but they dont have a PC architecture and have much more in common with the technology thats normally used in tablets and smartphones. In fact, if it wasnt for the horrible DRM boot control guff that Microsoft put on the Surface RT, Im sure that someone would have put a version of Jelly Bean Android on it by now.
Intel probably isnt thrilled at this development, as it presides over a desktop chip sales decline and watches ARM license billions of processors each year.
However, its not going all Microsofts way either. When Microsoft went into the hardware PC market it started to compete directly with the PC markers it partners, in an uncomfortable way. As it turns out, and after a number of public warnings, the Surface machines havent sold well, so youd think the PC makers would be unconcerned. However, theyre very anxious, because they see Microsoft as partly responsible for the decline in overall PC sales, thanks to Windows 8.
This is probably unfair, because PC sales slumped well before Windows 8 arrived, although that OS hasnt markedly arrested that trend so far.
The response came recently, when six of the biggest PC makers, including Acer, HP, Asus and Toshiba all announced new Intel Haswell PCs, running Googles Chrome OS.
That completes the circle, because weve seen Windows machines that arent Intel x86 and now were going to see Intel x86 machines that arent sold with Windows or Mac OS X on them. It could be argued that because of Linux, that second step isnt especially radical, but it does hint that whatever common objectives were once held between Intel and Microsoft are now evaporating.
In an odd way, were returning to the 80s, where a personal computer was whatever the company making it decided that included - a genuinely exciting time.
The problem from a PC traditionalist perspective is that this future lacks the clearly defined demarcation of the past, where a PC wasnt a phone and most tasks didnt start with just web browser.
Youd think logically that Microsoft would be organising the resistance against this movement; instead they seem to encouraging it. Why?
Understanding Microsoft
As companies go, Microsoft can do some seemingly crazy things at times, which it later has great difficulty explaining. One that confuses many people is its movement away from what might be described as the pure PC path to one that seems much less constricted, a commodity computing era.
Much of what Microsoft is currently doing is entirely modelled on the success its seen Apple have in the smartphone and tablet market, where it created an completely controlled vertical market.
In the Apple eco-system, there arent different hardware makers, only one. All software must be sold through its application store, and a slice of all sales goes to it. With the success of the iPod, iPhone and iPad, this has made Apple one of the most profitable companies on the planet.
Microsoft would like to be that rich, so its devised a plan where the PC has a walled garden built around it, and eventually all roads lead to only Microsoft. However, Im not entirely sure Microsoft wants to be the exclusive maker of personal computers, if that were even possible.
The first critical parts of its plan have already swung into action, with the arrival of Windows 8 and the Surface systems.
These are undoubtedly stepping stones to Windows 9, where it seems inevitable that app applications will only be installable through the Microsoft Store and the role of the desktop will massively reduced.
In this way, Microsoft is determined to be the single company that defines what a PC is and isnt, and to chaperone its transformation from flexible computing device to a mere service portal.
If you dont like this idea (and certainly youre not alone), then take heart in the knowledge that many of Microsofts plans do flounder, and based on the sales of Windows 8 so far, this may be one of those that do.
A better way to think about it is to forget that Windows 8 is Windows, and see it for what it is: a competitor to traditional Windows, iOS and Android.
The problem that conclusion reveals is that if it isnt Windows, then the justification for sticking with Microsoft over any other eco-system doesnt exist. What its effectively doing is setting the world of computing free (before it breaks out), in the wildly optimistic hope that itll return through some sort of brand loyalty. It also assumes that people really care if the computer theyre using is a traditional PC or Microsofts definition of it. However, the sales of Apple and Android devices over the past year would strongly suggest that neither of these points stands up to much scrutiny.
Final Thoughts
Surely, what Ive been discussing here is the definition of personal computer, and between those two words over the past 40 years a great deal of variation has existed.
The idea that the PC is a highly regimented assembly of parts is continually confronted by its very nature, where new technology products come and old ones are relegated. Because of this, you cant realistically run a standard installation of Windows 3.1 on a modern PC, and you cant get Windows 8 to boot on an i486.
As soon as you try to create a definitive list of what constitutes a PC, youre left with a seemingly endless list of exclusions, where not having a part or facility doesnt really remove the device from being a PC.
However, the core problem of trying to define a PC, today, now, is that its not applicable six months from now and wouldnt be applicable to legacy systems.
Therefore, computers that arent classed as PCs are those that dont fit the current definition, which probably means its wrong. All smartphones and tablets, and satnavs for that matter, are personal computers, even if theyre not neoclassical PCs.
Microsoft seems determined to hunt that beast to extinction, even if the customer base for these types of systems is still quite healthy in business and not remotely dead in the personal computing space.
However, Im not actually convinced it has the plan yet to actually accomplish this, as it patently doesnt have the level of control over the direction computing is heading in that it once had. If ever Microsoft needs a reality check, then it should look at how Apple created the real demand in the smartphone market, only for Google to grab the lions share from it - a company that doesnt make its own hardware. The esteem with which Microsoft holds Apple needs to be tempered by the loss of market share that the iPhone maker is experiencing, and its total inability to make the Apple Mac anything more than a modern computing curiosity.
What this all highlights is that the PC never was something made by Intel (or AMD) working with software created by Microsoft or others. It was a concept of a piece of computing putty that you could sculpt into your personal computing assistant.What were honing now is our cloud profile, so that every device we pick up has those things on it we need, not what it comes with by default.
The world is changing. The PC is changing, and based on the history of modern computing, none of this current flux is new phenomena.
For those that wonder why, after such a long period of stability, this is happening now, one only needs to look at those who wish to use a device without understanding it. Touch devices need fingers not keyboard skills, and loading applications just requires you to pick them off the screen. That very lack of flexibility that the PC addresses is part of the reason that people are migrating to these devices, because they feel more in control, even if ironically they have less.
Where the PC ends up will be the culmination of all the forces placed on it, commercial, economic and cultural.
Going back to where I started this article, is the PC dying or is it evolving? It might be a fudge, but from my perspective it looks like a little of both. The iPad has shown the way, although many people couldnt realistically use it for the sort of work they do on a desktop PC. Therefore what were starting to see is a new generation of devices where PC technology, in the form of the Surface and its ilk, come back to provide the simplicity of the tablet but the flexibility of the PC. In that respect, the total decimation of the PC world in favour of tablets seems implausible, because it will adapt - it always has.
Theres probably common ground, either in hybrid devices or conventional PC technology running tablet operating systems. Where exactly this will take us is part of the great adventure that keeps me writing about computers. If the last 30 years or so have taught me anything, the future of computing is never entirely what it was anticipated to be in the past.
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