Is it the end of PC era?

There has been a lot of talk in the business world about the replacement of PCs with tablets and smartphones.

That may be true for consumers, but I'm reluctant to make that judgement about the corporate world; tablets are expensive and not practical for workers who may resist change.

Is your company moving away from PCs?

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Roguetadhg

Definitely not.

YFZblu

Not at the moment - our organization is spending money on data center consolidation and security.

N2IT

Yes

A percentage of the workforce has been identified to transition to WYSE terminals from desktops and laptops in 2013 - Pilot and 2014 rollout.

I think so far they have buy in from ~65% of the business.

Lower cost per resource
Knowledge retention
Less cost to maintain

Most of our salespersons don't have PC anymore. They opted out - they could either have a mobile phone and mobile device (iPad) or a laptop. Almost all of the salespersons went with the mobile technology.

danny069

The end is near, but not here yet. Virtualization will slowly replace PCs.

Roguetadhg

Cloud, Virtualization... will replace the PCs.
PC gaming is dead.

... I'm sure I'll see "PC gaming is dead" sometime around New Years. :P

I'm not holding my breath for anything to replace the desktop computer - or something that can transform into a desktop computer. Desktop computer where you sit at a desk and type. Tablet, or Laptop, or Phone... If you sit at a desk and type. it's a "desktop" computer, to me!

I do think that if I was a sales person or someone that had to move around a lot- Mobile technology is just the best choice. I think that's where "Surface" will shine.

sratakhin

Are tables the devices that kids use to check their Facebook & Twitter?

netsysllc

The market will slow but not go away. The average worker is not going to be productive on a tablet or other fancy device. Plus there are way too many LOB applications to get rid of the PC in the work place any time soon.

binarysoul

I'm reading the responses and so far I like what everyone has said. I think most of you think the same way I do, e.g. I too didn't think the PC market will vanish overnight. But a few of you have noted about giving employees a choice about technology they want to use!

N2IT

Binary absolutely

The choice is there and it's hard to support in any large scaled environment. Either way businesses want to go this route and we have to support this technology one way or another.

twodogs62

Sales on pcs already slowing down.
mobile devices, tablets increasing being used.

this is already talking huge share from desktop pcs we know today.
cloud based solutions usage growing.

What I foresee is desktop computers will become devices just to connect to virtual desktops.
this means mobile device, tablet will become future. People want to be mobile and more control of their own devices and needs.

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jibbajabba

Actually when my PC died I did not replace it. I handle my mails and Web browsing on my ipad or phone. Use my 5 year old laptop for stuff where I require a bigger screen (or things like vsphere administration) and even use RDP / SSH on my ipad. I'd buy a MacBook if I could justify the cost but apart from that, a PC has no room in my life anymore unless forced by work

kurosaki00

Roguetadhg wrote: »

Cloud, Virtualization... will replace the PCs.
PC gaming is dead.

... I'm sure I'll see "PC gaming is dead" sometime around New Years. :P

I'm not holding my breath for anything to replace the desktop computer - or something that can transform into a desktop computer. Desktop computer where you sit at a desk and type. Tablet, or Laptop, or Phone... If you sit at a desk and type. it's a "desktop" computer, to me!

I do think that if I was a sales person or someone that had to move around a lot- Mobile technology is just the best choice. I think that's where "Surface" will shine.

funny
League of Legends is the most played game in the world
PC game
huh

In a personal note, as long as an Elder Scroll game comes out, Ill get a new pc/pieces for it.
TES suck in console.

DevilWAH

hte desktop PC has already survived the Laptop revolution, when every one said there would be no desktops. yes laptops have cut in to the desktop market, but for static workstations the Desktop is still the king.

So yes tablets and other devices will replace desktops (and laptops) in some areas, it may even be that the desktop is reduced to a minority player. But I still think that in 10 years, I will be sitting at y desk with a small form factor desk to to do my network management tasks. Writing configs and applying them to devices is not something I would like to do on a tablet.

Then there are the games, PC games are still a large market share compared to the consoles, and the PC gaming market is still very healthy. So I don't see PC gaming disappearing for a good while yet.

my view next 10 years will see a reduction in PC sales but they will still remain a large section of the market.
in 20+ years time I am not so sure.. Buy then I can see the internet and cloud having advanced to the level where all that is needed is a dumb terminal.

tpatt100

I heard about League of Legends a while ago but nobody I know has heard of it or played it. It's popular I bet but I don't consider it mainstream.

Quite a few articles have shown that smartphones are catching up to PCs when it comes to online traffic. For myself probably 90+ percent of my online reading is on my iPad because I don't have to get up to go use it like my PC or laptop, its tap and go. My wife works at the University of Michigan and they converted to thin clients a couple of years ago and Google hosting for services. Only reason I have a high end PC is for gaming and even that is diminishing greatly I use my Xbox or PS3 downstairs for when I have time to game I don't have to isolate myself upstairs in the computer room.

Big name games are becoming more niche, for every Skyrim and COD there are a dozen games that don't even break even. I think more and more game developers will switch more of their efforts to the mobile market where the profit margin is greater due to less development costs and lower risk. Plus the gaming population is getting older now its in the mid thirties now last I checked.

Nobody I know now a days buys desktops they switched to laptops due to size, portability and cost. The specs kept improving and are more than capable for the majority of people. Then I saw everybody in my wife's side of the family sending emails or posting on Facebook forgetting to turn off the sigs that say "sent from my iPhone" or posted from Facebook mobile or something like that.

I think the tablet convertible devices will become the norm pretty fast. Best Buys in my area only have like one row of desktops, it's all tablets and laptops now.

blargoe

Most IT staff and select power users will continue to require traditional computer hardware for the forseeable future.

Companies with less complex IT requirements will be, by and large, devoid of traditional computer hardware in 5 years, in favor of tablet/smartphone, and public/hybrid IT services for email and collaboration.

For everyone else, I'm already seeing a move toward terminals/VDI for the "worker drone" type of users... warehouse employees that just need a shortcut to the WMS, finance users that only use Excel and the ERP system, people that only use 2 or 3 apps for 95% of their work.

Tackle

sratakhin wrote: »

Are tables the devices that kids use to check their Facebook & Twitter?

Doubtful. I'll check the next time I'm sitting at the table having supper and I'll get back to you.

lsud00d

tpatt100 wrote: »

I heard about League of Legends a while ago but nobody I know has heard of it or played it. It's popular I bet but I don't consider it mainstream.

If you play computer games and you have friends that play computer games, odds are you've heard of LoL. LoL is a DOTA derivative and in the MOBA genre. If you don't know what any of these things are then you're not a PC gamer

Regardless, PC gaming will be the last vestiges of desktop computing.

dave330i

lsud00d wrote: »

Regardless, PC gaming will be the last vestiges of desktop computing.

VDI haven't been able to crack CAD users.

paul78

binarysoul wrote: »

Is your company moving away from PCs?

If by PCs, you meant desktops, yes, in my division, we are 99.9% PC free. The workforce uses laptops by default. Development teams that need extra performance are provided with VM's usually to run server OSs. Anything else is treated as as exception and requires management approval.

ptilsen

N2IT wrote: »

A percentage of the workforce has been identified to transition to WYSE terminals from desktops and laptops in 2013 - Pilot and 2014 rollout.

I think so far they have buy in from ~65% of the business.

Lower cost per resource
Knowledge retention
Less cost to maintain

These are still PCs. They aren't getting applications processed on WYSE terminals. They'll be logging into some form of virtual desktop or virtual session. I don't see a major distinction on the hardware side or software side from a full-blown desktop workstation. Intel gets the same amount of money or more; storage manufacturers get the same or more; Microsoft gets more.

For the record, I think they're going to be disappointed if they think there are less costs. The licensing is more expensive; hardware is about the same; maintenance and back-end require more expensive hardware, more complex hardware more admins, better admins. Don't get me wrong; overall, I'm in favor of doing this type of transition because what it really provides is better availability at similar costs. It's just a mistake to think that there's some sort of software/hardware economy of scale being leveraged with VDI and that that's the primary driving force -- in most cases, there isn't and it shouldn't be.

dave330i wrote: »

VDI haven't been able to crack CAD users.

Same thing as gaming, essentially. GPU-intensive applications are difficult to do "in the cloud," although we're getting pretty close. CAD seems to be a higher priority, though, since it's the last thing stopping massive switch to VDI and/or session virtualization for all apps.

I don't think PCs are going away, in the same sense that I don't think game consoles will go away and that mainframes and supercomputers never went away. There will always be a need for them, even if they aren't as ubiquitous as they used to be. I do think what we will see is more and more transition to session and desktop virtualization in the corporate world, meaning more thin clients and tablets. The back end will still be a Windows desktop or RDSH server, and the experience will be functionally the same as having a "PC", which is why I see no real distinction for the purposes of this conversation. In terms of actual full-blown desktop PCs, PC gamers, developers, CAD users, accountants, Mac users, et al aren't going to go away anytime soon.

What we're seeing is a market shift. PCs get replaced in 5-7 years instead of 3-5. Windows upgrades cost less, come out more frequently, yet remain compelling. Laptops and desktops hit about 50% of sales numbers from all time highs before plateauing -- depending on how you define laptop/tablet hybrids, which I think will be popular.

jibbajabba

ptilsen wrote: »

Same thing as gaming, essentially. GPU-intensive applications are difficult to do "in the cloud," although we're getting pretty close. CAD seems to be a higher priority, though, since it's the last thing stopping massive switch to VDI and/or session virtualization for all apps.

dave330i wrote: »

VDI haven't been able to crack CAD users.

With the latest nxtop implementation of Citrix Client and GPU passthrough support you certainly can ... it comes VERY close indeed ....

Even if - based on some research about 0.2% of user in our 5.5k user environment would require a physical PC, based on either GPU or storage requirement. The remaining 99.8% can stream their desktop ... In theory .. still in the middle of a POC

tpatt100

lsud00d wrote: »

If you play computer games and you have friends that play computer games, odds are you've heard of LoL. LoL is a DOTA derivative and in the MOBA genre. If you don't know what any of these things are then you're not a PC gamer

Regardless, PC gaming will be the last vestiges of desktop computing.

"I" have heard of it but when I look online for anything about it or ask anybody online about it the usual responses are "If you thought Xbox Live chat was awful then you will hate LoL" lol

And coincidentally in my news feeds I see a story of a pro LOL gamer getting a perma ban for being the most hateful player sheesh.

tpatt100

Tackle wrote: »

Doubtful. I'll check the next time I'm sitting at the table having supper and I'll get back to you.

Your table doesn't have wifi/LCD? Sheesh get with the program its almost 2013....

ptilsen

jibbajabba wrote: »

Even if - based on some research about 0.2% of user in our 5.5k user environment would require a physical PC, based on either GPU or storage requirement. The remaining 99.8% can stream their desktop ... In theory .. still in the middle of a POC

I agree, but consider the costs and benefits. If you have multiple sites, and each site needs local network storage and infrastructure services to support workstations, you lose a huge benefit of moving to thin clients, which is removing server and storage infrastructure from sites. If you're in a position where that's not an issue, then I'm all for it. For an organization (or site) that has, say, 10% of its users on AutoCAD, it's generally more costly to go 90% virtual than to just keep using workstations.

What I've seen on the latest implementations of GPU support in virtual session and desktop environments is that the quality is somewhere between "just barely good enough" and "not quite there". I've not seen any case studies where a heavy AutoCAD user couldn't tell the difference between physical and virtual, and I know it isn't where it needs to be on the gaming side of things. I think we're three years away from really seeing AutoCAD start to get moved, but probably more like ten years on gaming -- assuming PC gaming isn't dead, as we've been hearing for the better part of a decade.

Edit: On a side note, I don't believe the LoL statistics. They're not at all scientific and not from a reputable source.

Roguetadhg

I've seen wallpapers of League of Legends and seen a few DOTA things.

I've usually buckled down into a set game for a few weeks (Diablo 3), months (TF2) or years (Starseige: Tribes/WOW).

It just seems like everything is just coming back around in a circle... PC > Dumb Terminals > PC > "Cloud"/Virtualization > PC?

Legacy User

lsud00d wrote: »

If you play computer games and you have friends that play computer games, odds are you've heard of LoL. LoL is a DOTA derivative and in the MOBA genre. If you don't know what any of these things are then you're not a PC gamer

Regardless, PC gaming will be the last vestiges of desktop computing.

So many acronyms can't keep up

lsud00d

"I" have heard of it but when I look online for anything about it or ask anybody online about it the usual responses are "If you thought Xbox Live chat was awful then you will hate LoL" lol

Yeah...the community is akin to Reddit or certain areas of 4chan and is full of trolls, BUT I also don't think there are any skill-based games that are so reliant upon each member of the team that one non-par player can essentially waste 1 hour of your life (some matches can go an hour+). It's really funny and humorous to me and as long as you remember #1 rule (don't feed the *****) you'll be fine!

So many acronyms can't keep up

Just wait till my ADC's AOE maximizes my IE's CS

vanquish23

My company is setting up folding tables on the data center floor, and we are buying a bunch of Microsoft Crapface Pro's to run cloud computing apps.

inscom.brigade

It is hard to ignor, or laugh at a posible next economic super power. I speak of China, they set trends, know it or not, they do not even consider mac as viable work equipment. A tablet is a toy and so is a mac in China. If you go to the large area were PC's are sold in China, they do not even have any mac, nobody would buy one, as they are considered for childeren. I have not been their in a couple years, but I am sure that nobody is running to buy tablets in China.

tpatt100

inscom.brigade wrote: »

It is hard to ignor, or laugh at a posible next economic super power. I speak of China, they set trends, know it or not, they do not even consider mac as viable work equipment. A tablet is a toy and so is a mac in China. If you go to the large area were PC's are sold in China, they do not even have any mac, nobody would buy one, as they are considered for childeren. I have not been their in a couple years, but I am sure that nobody is running to buy tablets in China.

Huh? Are you relying on anecdotal evidence? Apple not opening more stores in China was a problem brought up by analysts because it's a large growth opportunity.

Mac sales growing faster for Apple in China than US

again just one analyst but still tech is growing in China overall.

Analyst Ben A. Reitzes with Barclays Capital said in a note to investors on Wednesday that he's not concerned by recent domestic sales data that some have interpreted as slower-than-expected Mac sales growth in the U.S. The NPD Group released figures on Tuesday that showed U.S. Mac sales up 12 percent year over year, a number that still easily outpaced the rest of the industry.

But Reitzes still believes Apple's total global sales will be up 22 percent year over year, thanks largely to rapid expansion in China. He said his checks with industry sources indicated that Mac sales grew faster in China last quarter than they did in the U.S.