March 29, 1999
Rumors of the PC's death are premature
By Bob O'Donnell
The computer industry's desire to constantly innovate drives it forward and helps keep
it generating the types of products and services that support a tremendously powerful
economic engine -- one that is the envy of most other industries. Sometimes, though, the
push for innovation and new developments within the high-tech world goes a bit too far.
At least, that's what I think must be the motivation behind comments made by IBM CEO
Lou Gerstner last week, as well as other prominent industry leaders such as
Hewlett-Packard's Lew Platt and Oracle's Larry Ellison. In a letter accompanying the
release of IBM's annual report last week, Gerstner made the claim that the PC is dead and
is to be replaced by networkable specialty devices, such as handheld computers, set-top
boxes, and the like. The network -- specifically the Internet -- is what's important, he
essentially said.
Although I can certainly understand the general sentiment, I find the increasingly
frequent comments such as these to be absolutely confounding. It's almost as if the
industry leaders are saying, "We intend to innovate ourselves right out of our core
business." (Of course, given that these comments have primarily come from leaders
whose companies have suffered in the PC market or who have no vested interest in PC
software or hardware, perhaps it's not that surprising.)
Plus, given the state of technology as it stands and the directions in which it is
moving, how could there not be a personal computer or very similar device in our
collective futures? I certainly understand and appreciate the notion of pervasive
computing, where PCs as we know them will disappear and all of the various devices with
which we interact will have computers embedded into them, but it's a lot more science
fiction that science fact right now.
If you look at the existing market of specialty or dedicated function devices, for
example, you find that it's hardly even existent. And the few products that may be
classified in that way are woefully inadequate. WebTV, for example, although interesting
in theory, is excruciating to use and does an extremely poor job of rendering Web pages
(let alone letting you interact with Web-based applications). Most dedicated function
devices that I've seen or read about are like this: neat in concept, but nowhere near
useful in real life.
Even if you expand the view out to devices such as handheld computers, cellular phones
with embedded Internet features, personal digital assistants, and other gadgets, there's
really none that are that terribly useful without a connection back to a PC. Yes, a few
are fun to play with, but they are far from being essential tools. And although it can be
handy to have immediate access to certain types of information, that information only has
real value when you can keep it in sync with a technological home base: a PC.
Plus, there's no unified system that will let any of these devices communicate with one
another, which is essential if specialized, non-PC devices are to achieve any degree of
success. And unfortunately, given the computer industry's track record in trying to
develop useful, widespread interoperability standards, I doubt there will be such a system
for a long time to come.
I have no doubt that today's PCs will mutate and evolve in ways that we can't really
imagine, but just as yesterday's personal computers are still recognizable, so too do I
think tomorrow's PCs will be recognizable devices that continue to play a critical role in
our business and personal lives.
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Copyright 1999, by InfoWorld Publishing Corp., a
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