It's the end of an era of computer technology with HP announcing that it's pulling out the PC business. The advent of newer computing platforms has made PC's a very difficult business with low margins and almost no growth.

Of course IBM pulled out a while back selling it's pc business to lenovo, now it's HP and maybe Dell will leave in the future.

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Of course this probably doesn't mean much in the short term, with other companies just taking over HP's market share. But in the long term this could drive up PC and component prices

 

Damn... This is surprising... But why would it drive component prices up?

 

And with the advent of HP closing up shop, their touchpad is now selling fast for bargain prices as low as US$100 in online stores if you are fast enough to grab a bargain. For those of you who are a bit more lazy, available over ebay for US$250 + P&H for the 16Gb models. If I come across one with not much effort in the 100-150 range I will probably snap one up.

 

HP isn't closing shop. They're now focusing on software for the consumer, and higher-end server grade hardware. They didn't make any money off of the PC sales, despite sales being fantastic. This isn't the end of the PC at all.

 

You're treating a sale as something it's not. Being replaced by another company is not the same as HP's PC division fading into the ether, along with all the demand created by its customers.

The PC may experience a decline in the market, but at the moment, there isn't any real alternative, apart from laptops. Tablets simply aren't up to scratch.

edit: Also, what Vir said.

 

Was HP even manufacturing their own components? Even if so, I don't think it would have a considerable impact on component prices. Most hardware is manufactured in Taiwan/China by companies few laymen could name.

Anyway, the PC won't die out - even if it will be a less important part in home entertainment etc. The fact that the PC market shows little growth and low margins doesn't mean it's going to die out - it just means the market is saturated. The end of the gigahertz race also means that it'll be harder to get most people to upgrade their PC every two years, especially when their requirements are also met or mostly covered by a tablet.

I'm looking forward to see how successful Microsoft will be in handling the Tablet issue - whether the "post-pc" opinion or the "new formfactor" view will prevail. If the tablets abilities will widen in scope to replace the usual needs that have been covered by PCs so far (e.g. Office work), I can see even more people moving from desktops to tablets.

For the foreseeable future, I will stick to my PC - I prefer the game experience over consoles, and I don't believe my browsing needs will be met by a tablet - especially not by an iPad. And I love the mouse+keyboard combination - you'll have to pry those from my cold, dead hands.

Unless the macbook touch thingamajig was available for a Windows laptop ... that may be worth a try. Let's see what Win8 can do...

 

Yeah, I can't see Desktop/laptop computers dying out anytime soon. They are still far too necessary for day to day life.

Gotta say though, i fucking love my multi touch trackpad, and intend to buy one for the next desktop computer that I get, which will probably be an iMac. Only thing I use a mouse for is gaming.

But yeah, tablets simply cannot beat the convenience and ease of use that current PCs have, tablets are consumption devices, and still pretty crap at multi tasking, no matter what OS you run on.

 

PCs won't die, but they'll def fall out of favor with most consumers. A high-end laptop + giant monitor suits my needs while being loads more useful. Tablets are consumption devices for the vast majority of people, but more businesses are finding uses for them everyday.

 

The 'tablet' device really fits in between device when it comes to their usage. They are very much a consumption device. They aren't really creation devices which is what keeps them from killing off the PC form factor.

They fulfill casual computing needs, things like full featured word processors are really what keeps the PC form factor around.

It will be real cloud computing which will see the PC form factor market share reduce greatly. None of this 'iCloud' shit, but real cloud distributed computing where all the processing is done 'in the cloud'. It will also be a massive boon for mobile devices.

We are at the time where our mobile phones are more powerful than consoles such as the Nintendo 64 and even the PS2.

 

End of the PC? lolno. One company may be getting out of the PC business, but there's still other companies that will gladly sell computers to people.

And building your own is always an option. I built mine with top level parts for probably half of what Dell or HP would have charged me for a computer like this.

 

?


"Microsoft announced today they are pulling out of the console market"

Gais Gais Console era is dead guys!


'course its not nearly along the same level. But still a good analogy?

So HP is pulling back. Not surprised though. What do you think of when you hear the word laptop/touchpad?

For laptops: Dell, Asus, Lenovo.
Touchpad: iPad, Toshiba(but mostly iPad. Apple really did get the brand recognition there. XD)

You dont think Hp... when I think Hp its... "Printers."

Besides like World said market saturation. There's no drive to consumers to get the next new cpu when its a relatively marginal improvement over their old one. I mean there was a real big hurry to get from single cores to dual cores to quad cores and now? We're kind of sitting pretty at quad cores for the consumer because 8 cores is a bit expensive and so is putting another quad core onto your mobo. And your mobo needs to support two cpus as well. A lot of upfront cost to the consumer that might not really need it.

 

The only "PC" I see getting any sort of footing are HTPCs - which are basically glorified NAS drives. Especially if your television has its own OS/apps.

 

With more and more people realizing that they can get more out of their PC budget by building one of their own, PC businesses will likely get out of business pretty soon. I can see Acer staying in the game the longest. Cause they have some pretty cheap machines too compared to what other competitors are offering.

 

You'll just comment in every thread until the end of time won't you?

 

Aaah, so this guy is why my "New Posts" page suddenly became way bigger than I remember it being. I thought i had been keeping on top of that.