Desktop PCs are "going the way of the vacuum tube, typewriter, vinyl records, CRT and incandescent light bulbs", according to IBM's chief technology officer for Middle East and Africa, Mark Dean.
Dean, one of the 12 engineers who designed the first IBM PC 30 years ago, said that PCs are being replaced at the centre of computing.
He argues that, at one time, progression and innovation was centred on PCs and how powerful they could be developed to become, but it is now new tools and services that are creating the most innovation in IT.
He claims that IBM anticipated this move when it sold its PC business to Lenovo in 2005, and has shifted its focus to schemes such as its Smarter Planet initiative and the question-and-answer technology in the Watson computer.
"I, personally, have moved beyond the PC," said Dean in a blog post. "My primary computer now is a tablet. When I helped design the PC, I didn't think I'd live long enough to witness its decline. But, while PCs will continue to be much-used devices, they're no longer at the leading edge of computing."
I too worked for IBM for 32 years and retired in March of 1990 and was in Service Planning and Service Research and Development Technology Assessment. I will tell you that the concept of a desktop and laptop will go on for many years in homes and offices around the world. They may be smaller, shaped different, weigh less, many times more powerful and cost less, however they will still be here and we will still run applications on them.
Posted by: John H. Ryder Sr. 23 Aug 2011
As a retired IBMer who actually worked on devices to be used in the IBM PC, I say that " If you try to take away my desktop or laptop PC, it will be out of my cold, clammy, dead hands " . This guy has his head in the cloud - or maybe it's somewhere else.
Posted by: Ron Klein 19 Aug 2011
William, Alex, Dom - You guys don't "get it". We used to fly in machines powered by propellers, now we fly in machines powered by jets, tomorrow we may fly in machines powered by...(?). My point is that WE STILL FLY! And tomorrow we will STILL COMPUTE, only with something that acts more like the human brain. Remember DOS? (Yuch!!)
Posted by: Dave 18 Aug 2011
I think he is saying that computing power does not require a large box and network and cloud connectivity does not require you to carry around large amounts of storage...do you really think in 20 yrs you are going to have a big desk-top computer? Maybe IBM was thinking long term by getting out of the PC business?
Posted by: bruce 18 Aug 2011
Perhaps IBM is preparing some tablet of its own and this is merely early advertising hype.
Whereas portable devices may have made the desktop personal computer obsolete for those that should never have had one in the first place, I am sure that whole armies of Designers, Engineers, Chemists, Scientists, Modellers, Architects, Artists, Mathematicians, Statisticians and Gamers, not to mention Businessmen and Market Traders are not about to get rid of theirs any time soon.
It would be nice if high ranking corporate types weren't so given to this silly type of hyperbole.
I should add that I design programs for portable devices, so I am not unfamiliar with their capabilities. Portable devices are great but a good workstation cannot really be replaced by anything else.
Posted by: Alex 11 Aug 2011
What a load of rubbish. The PC (or better, computer, as we should include Macs here) isn't going anywhere.
This article makes no sense. He says they're "going the way of the vacuum tube, typewriter, vinyl records, CRT and incandescent light bulbs", but then says, "PCs will continue to be much-used devices". Contradict much?
If his primary computer is now a tablet, then he can't be that serious about computing anymore, I'm sorry.
Posted by: Dom 11 Aug 2011
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