The PC is dying, but very, very slowly

I find it strange that people don't count devices with touch screens as personal computers, even if they are personal. I always understood the 'personal' so that I'm in control of that device. So any general purpose computer where developers can distribute directly to consumers is a PC.<p>If a device allows accessible app sideloading, you can install software on it at will and use your device in any way you want. And that's my definition of a personal computer.<p>Devices running desktop windows or OS X are PCs to me. As are most Android based tablets and smartphones.<p>Am I right that most of you define the term differently? Because by my definition, the PC is doing very well. It's certainly under attack (windows phone 7, metro, iOS etc). But it's doing very well.

I think the bigger issue, which I don't see raised in the article (apologies if I missed it) is that PCs are <i>cheap</i>. That's a lot of what I wrote about in <a href="http://jseliger.com/2011/10/09/desktop-pcs-arent-going-anywhere-despite-the-growth-of-phones-and-tablets%e2%80%94because-theyre-cheap/" rel="nofollow">http://jseliger.com/2011/10/09/desktop-pcs-arent-going-anywh...</a> . In addition, if you're someone who mostly uses a computer for reading e-mail, looking at FB, and watching YouTube videos, practically any computer made in the last five to maybe ten years will be <i>just fine</i> for what you're doing. So why would you buy a new one?

My 4 years old computer still runs very well. I can also run newest pc games without problems. My video card relative power with the newest generation of console hasn't changed. I don't see why I would buy a new PC.<p>While PC sales might trend downward, I'm pretty sure that pc use is not.

How is this news? Most technology is dying slowly to be replaced by the latest and greatest.<p>Tablets and smartphones will be dying slowly too in a few years to be replaced by some other idea.

Any day now right? Like every year?

Intel is still going to be selling semiconductors whether people buy PCs or smartphones, but the reality is the price of the average processor someone is buying for use in their primary "computer" has been declining fast - Intel and anyone else in the game is going to need to make up the money in volume instead

Smartphones and Tablets are not a replacment for a PC but a complement. I do not see why it should die.

Hours a day I use a tablet computer 0, hours a day I use a desktop PC 8+. New Heading: dumb writer writes stupid article.

The PC is not dying, just look at the PC enthusiast community.

This article focused on hardware. The more interesting trend is in desktop software -- nobody is making it anymore.<p>Microsoft has so succesfully strangled the life out of the software industry that it is now a wasteland. Today, all games are for consoles, all mini-games are iphone games, all enterprise software is moving to the cloud, all productivity software is written as web services....<p>This is why the PC is dead meat.

I wonder what will die first, desktops or physical media?