5 ms·

I've been waiting for a while for someone to call this. While consumers may have moved on to do most of their device time in front of a phone, tablet or phable

by Aloha 8y ago

I've been waiting for a while for someone to call this. While consumers may have moved on to do most of their device time in front of a phone, tablet or phablet, the rest of us still spend many hours a day in front of a computer. There is still a sizable functionality gap between a tablet or phone, and a laptop or desktop computer.

Retric 8y ago
Intel etc is not making money because I use a PC they make money when I buy a new one. I have been upgrading my tablet more frequently than my PC in large part because I spend so much time on it. Multiply that shift by 1+ billion people and you start talking real money.
- Macha 8y ago
  On the other hand, many people bought some discount Kindle Fire and that's their tablet until it breaks. The reason Android tablets died as a market is it turned out their replacement rate was not nearly as high as smartphones, so investment in new models stopped.
seppin 8y ago
It has to be the keyboard, right? No other machine (phone/tablet) has a workable input device.
- frankydp 8y ago
  Keyboard + Mouse + Screen real estate Phones/Tablets are consumption devices first, and everything else is an afterthought/hack.
bryanlarsen 8y ago
Banks still use mainframes, and mainframes still have capabilities that laptops generally don't have. Neither argument means we're not in a post-mainframe era. Today the majority of computer & internet use happens on a phone. But it's still a small majority, so we cannot yet call it a post-PC era. If/when that turns into a substantial majority we'll be in the post-PC era, even if you and I still primarily use PC's.
- hyperman1 8y ago
  Interesting: Can you provide some examples of Mainframe capabilities not available to laptops or x86 machines in general?
  - reaperducer 8y ago
    Error-checking at the bit level? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bi-quinary_coded_decimal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bi-quinary_coded_decimal It's esoteric, but something that popped into my head.
  - merb 8y ago
    * extremly reliable * have each component twice to have high availability inside a system (not confusing with internet-era high availability where you have multiple machines) * high i/o * backward compatibility until it hurts
    - Aloha 8y ago
      This is the answer worth pointing at.
  - Spooky23 8y ago
    Primarily, they run the software built in the 1960s-1990s. They are highly secure/trustworthy from an isolation POV. It's a much more baked platform that what you see in x86.
    - walterbell 8y ago
      Did they escape Spectre/Meltdown?
  - dec0dedab0de 8y ago
    I think the biggest benefit is business logic written in the 70s, that the company has been relying on since.
  - bitwize 8y ago
izacus 8y ago
I mean, who would have thought that in a free market you'll get groups of people preferring different types of devices? I'm actually really concerned how around Apple and similar devices there's this strange groupthink which says that if a device only caters to less than majority of people on this planet, it gets mocked like it shouldn't exist.
- pjlegato 8y ago
  If you're optimizing purely for maximum ROI, then that's the correct product decision. Whoever achieves maximum ROI attracts the most additional capital investment, which enables them to lower unit costs and continue improving that ROI further, thereby gaining even more capital, etc. EDIT (since I'm getting downvotes): to be clear, I'm not advocating this particular "maximize overall ROI" decision as a moral good. I'm just pointing out that, empirically, this is what the market is actually optimizing for, irrespective of my feelings about it. That's the reason why they do it; it's not because they're dumb.
api 8y ago
I've been calling it since 2008. I never saw it happening for numerous reasons, chief among these being the intentionally crippled nature of mobile OSes. I'm glad others are realizing this. I remember a few years ago when people everywhere quacked "mobile is the future" in this weird almost brainwashed sounding way. I heard this a lot talking with CXO level people in companies, and then I'd look around and see that 100% of all real work was taking place on PCs. I kept my mouth shut of course. I've learned over the years that computing is extremely faddish and criticizing an in-vogue piece of fadthink is absolutely futile.

by Aloha 8y ago

Retric 8y ago

Intel etc is not making money because I use a PC they make money when I buy a new one. I have been upgrading my tablet more frequently than my PC in large part because I spend so much time on it. Multiply that shift by 1+ billion people and you start talking real money.

Macha 8y ago
On the other hand, many people bought some discount Kindle Fire and that's their tablet until it breaks. The reason Android tablets died as a market is it turned out their replacement rate was not nearly as high as smartphones, so investment in new models stopped.

seppin 8y ago

It has to be the keyboard, right? No other machine (phone/tablet) has a workable input device.

frankydp 8y ago
Keyboard + Mouse + Screen real estate Phones/Tablets are consumption devices first, and everything else is an afterthought/hack.

bryanlarsen 8y ago

Banks still use mainframes, and mainframes still have capabilities that laptops generally don't have. Neither argument means we're not in a post-mainframe era. Today the majority of computer & internet use happens on a phone. But it's still a small majority, so we cannot yet call it a post-PC era. If/when that turns into a substantial majority we'll be in the post-PC era, even if you and I still primarily use PC's.

hyperman1 8y ago
Interesting: Can you provide some examples of Mainframe capabilities not available to laptops or x86 machines in general?
- reaperducer 8y ago
  Error-checking at the bit level? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bi-quinary_coded_decimal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bi-quinary_coded_decimal It's esoteric, but something that popped into my head.
- merb 8y ago
  * extremly reliable * have each component twice to have high availability inside a system (not confusing with internet-era high availability where you have multiple machines) * high i/o * backward compatibility until it hurts
  - Aloha 8y ago
    This is the answer worth pointing at.
- Spooky23 8y ago
  Primarily, they run the software built in the 1960s-1990s. They are highly secure/trustworthy from an isolation POV. It's a much more baked platform that what you see in x86.
  - walterbell 8y ago
    Did they escape Spectre/Meltdown?
- dec0dedab0de 8y ago
  I think the biggest benefit is business logic written in the 70s, that the company has been relying on since.
- bitwize 8y ago

izacus 8y ago

I mean, who would have thought that in a free market you'll get groups of people preferring different types of devices? I'm actually really concerned how around Apple and similar devices there's this strange groupthink which says that if a device only caters to less than majority of people on this planet, it gets mocked like it shouldn't exist.

pjlegato 8y ago
If you're optimizing purely for maximum ROI, then that's the correct product decision. Whoever achieves maximum ROI attracts the most additional capital investment, which enables them to lower unit costs and continue improving that ROI further, thereby gaining even more capital, etc. EDIT (since I'm getting downvotes): to be clear, I'm not advocating this particular "maximize overall ROI" decision as a moral good. I'm just pointing out that, empirically, this is what the market is actually optimizing for, irrespective of my feelings about it. That's the reason why they do it; it's not because they're dumb.

api 8y ago

I've been calling it since 2008. I never saw it happening for numerous reasons, chief among these being the intentionally crippled nature of mobile OSes. I'm glad others are realizing this. I remember a few years ago when people everywhere quacked "mobile is the future" in this weird almost brainwashed sounding way. I heard this a lot talking with CXO level people in companies, and then I'd look around and see that 100% of all real work was taking place on PCs. I kept my mouth shut of course. I've learned over the years that computing is extremely faddish and criticizing an in-vogue piece of fadthink is absolutely futile.