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