ARM as a primary architecture

[Chris Murphy]

On Mar 22, 2012, at 3:04 PM, Adam Williamson wrote:

> On Thu, 2012-03-22 at 14:55 -0600, Chris Murphy wrote:
>> On Mar 22, 2012, at 12:32 PM, Adam Williamson wrote:
>>> 
>>> The mitigating factors are:
>>> 
>>> a) the desktop market could be considered unlikely to literally _die_.
>>> What may happen instead is it could become much more of a niche - in
>>> fact, very similar to what it was in the 1980s and early 1990s. There
>>> could always be a small amount of people who actually need or want a
>>> desktop computer, and these people could be rather close to the
>>> self-same ones they were in the 1980s and 1990s: people whose use cases
>>> intrinsically depend on large screens, keyboards, and significant whacks
>>> of power.
>> 
>> I use Photoshop, Lightroom, work on multi-gigabyte image files, as do
>> my customers. I intrinsically depend on a large screen, a keyboard,
>> and occasional whacks of power. I haven't owned a desktop computer in
>> 6 years.
>> 
>> The desktop form factor will die eventually, although the "desktop
>> user" need will remain. Whether the need will be met with more
>> powerful tablets and shared resources, or more efficient form factors
>> that aren't so ugly, power hungry, and space inefficient - or a
>> combination. We'll have to see. It depends on how much and how fast
>> that market shrinks, but it will shrink.
>> 
>> I get along just fine without a literal desktop computer, have for 6
>> years with just laptops/ I will eventually ditch the laptop also. Just
>> a matter of time. I do own an old smart phone. I do not own a tablet
>> or pad. 
>> 
>> And I'm not unique.
> 
> Anecdotal data is great, but it's just anecdotal. 

I am merely refusing the premise that those who "intrinsically depend on large screens, keyboards, and significant whacks" need a desktop. Or that it's a recent phenomenon. And I'm intimating that there is no good reason the trend will end at the laptop.


Chris Murphy