Michael Dell Dismisses Tablet Threat To the PC Market 352
alphadogg writes with an excerpt from a Network World article: "The PC is not likely to be challenged by the tablet or the smartphone, and many users of the Internet on these devices will turn to the PC for a better experience, Michael Dell said in Bangalore on Monday. If you were going off to college and could only have one device, you would choose the PC over a smartphone or a tablet, said Dell, whose company also sells smartphones. 'If you could have two devices, then you would probably choose the phone before the tablet,' the Dell CEO added."
Also, if you owned Apple (Score:5, Funny)
You would probably want to shut it down and return the money to the stock holders.
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Re:Also, if you owned Apple (Score:4, Insightful)
And being average is why his company is now sinking.
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Really? I'd say it's a mix of a few things. The only thing that isn't average about Dell nowadays is their incompetence.
First, we have them essentially giving up on what made them great - custom computers tailored to their customers needs and getting financing thereof. You could talk with a Dell Agent over the phone and end up with something that was perfect for you. Buy a Dell after 2004-2005 and the quality is noticeably just not there anymore.
Secondly, we have their lovely proprietary parts. One of my cu
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Re:Also, if you owned Apple (Score:4, Insightful)
Exactly. That's the ENTIRE purpose of Microsoft's $150M "investment" in Apple. It was an investor confidence move, and not a move that was to save Apple. (Remember, Apple paid $430M for NeXT. Surely if Apple needed, Jobs could've found $150M in spare change from that).
Microsoft sold that stock when they could a few years later for 3 times as much money.
Steve Jobs knew he needed to calm the markets, and what better way than going after the world's largest software manufacturer to make some investments. The money was trivial. The biggest news was development of Microsoft Office for Mac and IE. (The Mac Business Unit at Microsoft at one point had a nicer version of Office than Windows' Office).
Of course, a Microsoft-hating Apple user wouldn't admit it, but they wouldn't admit that Apple "needed" that $150M either. In the end, that whole $150M was just an investor confidence thing, coupled with Microsoft's commitment for at least 5 years of developing Office for Mac.
Jobs just reached out to one of this oldest associates knowing they both had problems - Microsoft and antitrust, Apple and investor confidence, and cunningly engaged in a plan that mutually benefits both.
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Not to mention how many CEOs had Bill Gates' home number and could call and say "Bill give me a hand"
... or you will lose billions for the Quicktime code you stole.
On March 3, 1995, a Federal judge issued a temporary restraining order that prohibited Microsoft from distributing its current version of Video for Windows. Later testimony in the United States v. Microsoft case revealed that, at the time, Apple was threatening Microsoft with a multi-billion dollar lawsuit over the allegedly stolen code. - fucking Wintrolls.
He's probably right. (Score:5, Insightful)
Trying to do much REAL WORK(tm) on a tablet is an exercise in frustration. By the time you add a keyboard and mouse so that you can be even marginally productive you might as well get the tablet so that you can work even where/when there isn't a wireless network.
The tablet's niche is on the couch or the train or the bus.
Only a threat in multiple computer households (Score:5, Interesting)
Agreed. On the other hand, I imagine that a fair number of the tablets sold went to people who were thinking about buying a laptop/netbook as a second computer, but then opted for the tablet instead.
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Hmm, at least in IT, a laptop is usually highly desirable so most ppl have em, but a lot of people especially recently have acquired tablets as well, the tablet is more convenient for some stuff, especially network related, where local cpu doesn't matter. It's also great for taking notes, keeping organized, etc...
I guess it can be compared to a laptop / netbook (more the latter), but I think it's more to supplement the former. Also try comparing an ipad to an ibook to better picture it, the former is not
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I have to agree. Laptop first and foremost. Tablets are great (using a kindle fire to post) but they're supplemental.
I don't know why smartphones became part of their conversation at all.
Re:Only a threat in multiple computer households (Score:5, Insightful)
Michael Dell is usually right about that kind of thing. That's not because I'm any kind of fangirl, or because I used to work for him, just that he's historically been pretty good at predicting market trends. You said it yourself... it's a good replacement to a *second* computer, but you still need a real computer to type documents and actually create content for. Especially at a school.
What I'd like is a modern version of the "tablet" computers that Lenovo was selling 8 years ago. The kind where you could flip the screen around and use the thing as a tablet, or you could open it up and have a working laptop? Couple that with an ultraportable 13" laptop that tips the scales around 3lbs, and they could make a ton of money on it. Wouldn't even be that hard, they'd just have to rearrange the hinge design on the laptop I have right now (a Dell Vostro V130), and replace the LCD with a touchscreen. I'd even be willing to accept one that requires a stylus instead of finger input. It would be hugely useful. I would be willing to accept the extra bulk inherent in that kind of design in exchange for the increased usability, and I'd still have something that's more portable than the heavier 15" or 16" laptops most people buy.
Re:Only a threat in multiple computer households (Score:4, Interesting)
Michael Dell is usually right about that kind of thing. That's not because I'm any kind of fangirl, or because I used to work for him, just that he's historically been pretty good at predicting market trends.
Michael Dell got ahead of this one: direct-marketing PCs works as a business model, and commoditization makes PC hardware mainly a supply chain management business. That was in 1984 and he rode this insight to victory!
Aside from that, it's been mostly misses, he's been cursed ever since he gave his free advice to Steve Jobs in 1997. He might occasionally prognosticate but he doesn't put his money where his mouth is. Dell completely misread media players and mobile, and its market share and profit margin off PCs has been in decline for years. It has not service or cloud strategy, no content strategy, no real brick and mortar retail, something hardware manufacturers have been getting into over the past decade. It's a mess, it's like they're still in 1997 and have their sights dead-set on Packard Bell.
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Michael Dell is usually right about that kind of thing. That's not because I'm any kind of fangirl, or because I used to work for him, just that he's historically been pretty good at predicting market trends. You said it yourself... it's a good replacement to a *second* computer, but you still need a real computer to type documents and actually create content for. Especially at a school.
This,
Ask yourself,
1) Who is Dell's primary audience?
2) Who is the tablets primary audience?
3) Which one of these has more money to spend?
Dells primary audience is business, tablets are consumer items and rarely used in businesses. Business budgets tend to be much higher then consumer budgets, they also turn over computers much faster. Michael Dell knows his audience, as much as the Apple fanboys hate to admit it and he's been quite successful because of that. Dell is still the number 2 PC maker in
Re:Only a threat in multiple computer households (Score:5, Insightful)
Dells primary audience is business, tablets are consumer items and rarely used in businesses.
Yeah, I remember when people around here used to say that about iPhones.
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I remember when people said that about desktop computers.
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Dells primary audience is business, tablets are consumer items and rarely used in businesses.
Try working in broadcast media.
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Which is what I did. An ASUS Transformer w/keyboard dock. And I then found out it is a poor replacement for a laptop, and too damned expensive to use as an e-reader. I sold it on EBay 4 months after purchase and bought a cheap laptop.
The Transformer was much cooler, but I can actually get productive work done on the laptop.
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He is right. Though they are a threat to consoles, and other handheld gaming devices.
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Might as well get the laptop I meant.
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Re:He's probably right. (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, why are you adding a mouse?
Because keyboard and touch screen is a combination that just doesn't work. I've tried it, and found it just easier to add a bluetooth keyboard and mouse combo rather than reaching across my keyboard to touch the tablet all the time. Touch screen cursor placement is finicky on the best of tablets. And any amount of typing beyond the short email is a hopeless productivity killer.
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Sorry, why are you adding a mouse?
Because keyboard and touch screen is a combination that just doesn't work. I've tried it, and found it just easier to add a bluetooth keyboard and mouse combo rather than reaching across my keyboard to touch the tablet all the time. Touch screen cursor placement is finicky on the best of tablets. And any amount of typing beyond the short email is a hopeless productivity killer.
I completely disagree. I've turned off the touchpad on my Asus Transformer, and decided I really didn't need to get a bluetooth mouse for it. Keyboard dock + touchscreen for navigation is a killer combo in my experience. Reaching out to swipe your finger down the screen is infinitely more natural (and quick) than using the mouse to grab the scrollbar then drag to move the window. With the keyboard only being...what 6 inches deep?...you're not really reaching very far to get to the screen.
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If I were playing a FPS, I'd need a mouse. If I'm doing almost anything else, trackpoint so my hands never leave my keyboard (pointer just beteer 'g' and 'h'). Not much of a middle ground to me. Touchscreen only makes sense for me when it's the only input method. I don't want my hands moving back and fourth between input devices.
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And the train or bus is where my desktop sucks, but for a measly $500 I built myself a great desktop that used my existing 23" monitor, and spent just another $799 on an iPad for mobile. Best of both worlds. If I was going to university again, this is the setup I would have loved, actually, I'd go one better, make sure the desktop also has hdmi out and go to a 40" display 8)
TV, music, videos, streaming, office apps and a remote clie t for them all!
Re:He's probably right. (Score:4, Insightful)
If Michal Dell wants to ignore the the metrics that made his company a household name in the first place, that's pretty damned stupid.
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And this information comes from...?
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I mean, they didnt give away computers in the 90s.
Re:He's probably right. (Score:4, Insightful)
And this information comes from...?
Personal histories, mine and thousands of other geeks I've talked to over the decades. Thousands of articles and editorials over the same span, etc.
Seriously, this is not a [citation needed] occasion. If you've been in the biz long enough, this is basic stuff.
No it isn't a [citation needed] moment, Dell and HP are the worlds biggest PC manufacturers because they are big in the business world. The consumer world is tiny compared to that.
The consumer is the poor cousin to business, businesses drive sales.
I've been in the Biz long enough to know that, it's basic stuff.
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What makes you think he was ever all that smart? Dell didn't get to where it is through innovative products; it got there through, at best, innovative and efficient manufacturing and ordering and low prices. They made it easy to configure a PC or server exactly the way you want it with a large array of options, and purchase it, with a very low price. There's no product innovation there, their products were nothing more than white-box PCs. They just made it easy for people to buy them. Plus, they starte
Re:He's probably right. (Score:5, Insightful)
Dude, what you described *is* innovation. It's like the Japanese bringing just-in-time manufacturing to the auto industry. It's just supply side innovation, rather than client-side.
Re:He's probably right. (Score:4, Informative)
You're assuming consumers never do real work, which is not a good assumption. Lots of people need to work from home now and then. And not just the people in techie professions, but teachers and reporters and managers and so on. None of those people will choose a tablet in place of a PC. And then there are the tens of millions of people who play video games like WoW or CoD. And there's the ever growing blogging world, whose members would likely prefer to write up their posts with a real keyboard.
Tablets represent a real threat to the laptop market, and may outright kill the netbook. But the PC has some major advantages that will allow it to remain the top choice for most people (who may also buy a tablet to go along with it!), at least until we get a sufficiently good docking system that can allow a tablet double as a PC.
Re:He's probably right. (Score:5, Insightful)
Trying to do much REAL WORK(tm) on a tablet is an exercise in frustration.
What you say is true, but for most people, "real work" means text editing, taxes, Quicken, maybe some photo organizing. Any computer made since 2006 is more than adequate until XP goes dark in 2014. If people get on an 8-year upgrade cycle for desktops/laptops, Dell is in for a real hard decade.
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The last system that *really* failed on me was a Dell desktop whose PSU went up in smoke when the cheapo fan stalled. It was about 6 years old. HDDs are easy to replace but those PSUs are generally proprietary in some way. Only in real nonames do you find generic ATX PSUs.
Re:He's probably right. (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is that a very large amount of people don't do what you would consider "real work"--they only want to check email, browse YouTube, and visit Facebook, and they only have PCs because it was the only way they could do those things previously. Michael Dell has a vested interest in telling people that PCs will rule forever, but I have to tell you, having a portable computer that you don't have to spend hours of maintenance on every week is really, really nice, especially in bed or on the couch.
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"Michael Dell has a vested interest in telling people that PCs will rule forever"
Well he also should have a vested interest in making sure he does not miss out on the tablet market which is Dell's number one threat.
Take a look at this statistic [statcounter.com] from poorer, but high-tech India? Yep, that is right. By April more Indians will use a phone/tablet than a desktop to browse the net, answer emails, run skype, etc.
Asia, Africa, and Eastern Europe is where the growth markets are. These people will use phones and not
Re:He's probably right. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not everything most people do. That's 95% of what most people do, and all they think of, but losing the other 5% becomes a real killer. Manipulating photos, video, having terabytes of storage, printing out coupons, printing out most anything, audio capture/editing, etc., etc. I've yet to meet someone who doesn't have one major niche purpose for their computers.
What the hell kind of maintenance are you doing for hours every week? If you're talking about security updates, well you're in for a big surprise when worms for iOS / Android start spreading. If you're talking about disk cleanup, well having a piddly amount of storage is a huge negative, not a positive that you can't do it anymore. Other than that, I can't think of what "maintenance" you need to do all the time.
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Re:He's probably right. (Score:5, Interesting)
At work, there's a couple of VPs whose passwords expired because they haven't logged in to their windows PC, but have been using their ipad/iphone for everything.
So, different uses for different people.
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At work, there's a couple of VPs whose passwords expired because they haven't logged in to their windows PC, but have been using their ipad/iphone for everything.
Which I would wager isn't much of anything. They probably do most of their work on the phone. VPs and doctors have about the same aversion to keyboards I've noticed.
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Maybe in the US you are right.
Check out internet usage in a poorer country that thrives on internet access [statcounter.com] compared to the US? [statcounter.com]
India cited is just an example of where by this spring more Indians will use IOS or Andriod to read the news, browse the net, and do other things than a desktop!
The US is a mature market where people only buy new equipment when it breaks down. No growth market here. Just look at backward corporate America being run by CFOs dirt cheap on believing any investment in tech like newer tha
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right now on my desk is a nook color, a laptop, a desktop and a smartphone. each has it's places and uses. The laptop for travel computing, the desktop for games, the smartphone for staying connected and the nook color for reading, minor web surfing.
I find it useful to have to nook opened to a website on a particular game I am playing so i have notes on hand, and can look up quick item facts. the nook also lasts 6 hours of continuous use so I don't' have to recharge it as often.
I went on vacation for 5 d
He *is* right (Score:2)
PCs are both consumption and production devices.
Tablets are limited in what they can produce, both by the touch interface and by the landscape of available software. Sure, you can make a video on a tablet (if it has a camera) but doing anything more than remedial video editing is a no-go. Still graphics production is, even if there were equivalents to GIMP/Photoshop/Illustrator/etc, an exercise in masochism. Even working on a spreadsheet is infuriating. Playing any PC or console game? Forget about it,
Re:He's probably right. (Score:5, Interesting)
Real work? Depends on what you mean. A new tool often *redefines* what "real" work is, although we'll have to wait and see. I certainly see tablets taking over much of the information *consumption* tasks done on a desktop computer.
This is how it has always worked. We didn't stop using mainframes when minicomputers came along; some of the tasks that used to be done in major datacenters were moved out to smaller installations and big iron actually bifurcated into two new market segments, each larger than the parent: high performance computing for weather prediction and such, and mainframes for moving vast volumes of data around ultra-reliably.
When PCs came along people stopped doing most interactive work directly on mini-computers via dumb terminals. We renamed "minicomputers" "servers" and focused them on providing data services to personal computers. The market for servers is certainly far larger than the mini-computer market was in 1981 when IBM introduced the PC (or in 1977 when Apple introduced the Apple II).
What happens when a new product category is created is that it becomes an area of fast growth, which sucks *attention*, but not necessarily profit from the old ones. It may in some cases spur growth, as desktops spurred the growth of the server business. The days of almost guaranteed exponential growth are long gone in the PC business, but it is possible that tablets rather than cannibalizing the PC business, will re-focus it.
At least probably. Predicting the future is hard, especially since we're dealing with *two* emergent techologies: really capable mobile devices and cloud services over ubiquitous networks. But *historically* when a class of smaller, cheaper, more convenient computing devices is created, what *had* been the low end segment doesn't really suffer. On the other hand individual firms (like DEC or Wang) *do* suffer when they fail to adapt to changes in the markets they were successful in.
Re:He's probably right. (Score:5, Interesting)
Trying to do much REAL WORK(tm) on a tablet is an exercise in frustration.
Do you mean like a doctor at a hospital looking at CTC scan or chart? Do you mean like a plant of warehouse working checking inventory? A meeting attendee reviewing meetings notes/annotating those notes? Is it not real work for someone to show their client a prospectus on a tablet and being able to make quick alterations on the device while meeting with them? What do you define as "real work"?
I would think that it would be equally frustrating to work with a laptop without a wireless connection. Many tablets like the iPad 2 come in 3G cellular data models so that takes care of the lack of "wireless".
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Exactly, most of those examples are edge cases, and those same people would go back to their desktop or laptop whenever they have to do anything more significant.
Tablets have some really great uses, no argument. It's just that those great uses are really limited.
He's wrong, and here's why: (Score:2)
He's wrong, and here's why:
"Inkling has several universities working with its iPad textbooks, including Brown's Alpert Medical School, University of California-Irvine, University of Central Florida and Hult International Business School."
So if you go to one of those schools, and "could only have one device", if you want your textbook, that device will be an iPad.
-- Terry
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Trying to do much REAL WORK(tm) on a tablet is an exercise in frustration
I have seen quotes similar to this by several CEOs, including from Microsoft. I really think this more than anything shows a lack of vision. We currently have laptops with docking stations that people can set up to use both a "desktop computer" they carry easily from work and home. While these are ok, they are typically limited to a specific make (and often model) of laptop. A shift to a more generic docking station is hopefully not too far off. As the processor market continues to evolve, I think we w
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The tablet's niche in academia is note-taking by hand interspersed with book-reading, things you'd do in class. It would make the most sense to use a tablet in class and a desktop to do the heavy lifting at home.
Even then, you have to wonder hoe much real note taking actually happens on these devices given the cramped keyboards, dearth of writing space, and the inability to type on a touch screen without watching it consantly. I suspect I could write just as fast and translate to my desktop later. I can also touch type on a real keyboard while watching what ever is going onto the board at the front of the room.
I wonder how many sitting in lecture halls are really facebooking their way thru boring presentations, w
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And it's not hard to see a world in which high end students using campus provided labs for the big stuff, and tablets for everything else.
Actually, that's pretty hard to see for me. Back in the old days (pre-90s), colleges did indeed have computer labs, since students certainly couldn't afford their own Unix or Prime machines back then, and Commodores weren't really sufficient for teaching CS classes or for use with more serious applications like registering for classes. But then, through the 90s, the com
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Computer labs are still pretty common because CS student deal with specialized machines. A university can't expect students to have a 16 core machine for multicore work, a Tesla for GPGPU programming, or a cluster for cluster work. Because CS is includes learning about the next big thing (at least it should be at a decent school), CS programs are always a step ahead of what the student usually has at home.
Now, that said, no, you don't need a 16 core box for introductory Java, and yes, when I graduated last
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For someone who claims to not believe in tablets, Michael Dell seems to be trying hard to break into the market. Maybe his lack of understanding about tablets is why Dell is having problems getting into the market. Apple certainly sells a lot of them for a nonexistent market.
He didn't claim that.
He doesn't believe that.
Stop putting words in his mouth.
All he said was that the death of the desktop/laptop is no where close.
With JUST a keyboard a tablet becomes good for note taking, not great, just good. But you might as well have a netbook or small laptop as try to balance a tablet and a keyboard on your knees in the lecture hall. Tablets are easier to carry, and that's about it. Doing any task on them without a bag full of accessories is a a mess.
Look, I have two tablets, and a
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"I will bet you dollars to donuts that I can take better notes faster in a spiral notebook than you can on a tablet. But then, I'm old school."
So... we should all be using spiral notebooks? Not sure what you're getting at.
Keyboard with my iPad means I can do all the real document work I need to, at laptop speeds. iOS has a full version of Pages with good feature parity of the desktop version, so I can do all the professional fancy word documents and presentations that I need to.
Really, the biggest disadvant
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A MacBook Air is only marginally larger than an iPad+Keyboard and infinitely more capable. I'm pretty happy with my iPad, but if I had to choose one device between it and a MacBook Air, the iPad wouldn't have a cha
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An iPad has an advantage of being a laptop with a keyboard when I want one, and a tablet when I don't. A Macbook Air is a laptop when I want one, and a laptop when I don't.
That's not to say the Macbook Air isn't a nice machine, and it has a better software library... But it's also more expensive, and arguably doesn't provide any more needed functionality to a lot of college students.
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The point is that a tablet is a _complementary_ device. Few people would, if forced to choose, select a tablet as their *only* "computer".
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The point is that a tablet is a _complementary_ device. Few people would, if forced to choose, select a tablet as their *only* "computer".
Again, I'm not sure I agree. For the average person, an iPad has all the functionality they would use in a laptop (including hardware keyboard) with more flexible mobility.
Let's face it. Most people send email, browse the web, and check Facebook. The iPad is a champ at all those things. For college students who need to take notes or do presentations, the iPad has printing, HDMI/DVI/VGA out, and a fully functional version of iWork.
Yes, there are certainly edge cases. As a developer who needs to use Xcode, I
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I never said they wouldn't download just fine. I said trying to interact with multiple ones, along with other sources of information, on an iPad, is vastly more cumbersome than doing it on a laptop or PC. iPads don't multitask well.
I don't think I've described anything that can reasonably be considered an "edge case" usage scenario.
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"I replied on Andriod and I always get responses critizing grammar and sentence structure etc. A keyboard rocks for college students writing papers. However, for consuming time wasting tweets a cell phone is better."
I'm not sure the keyboard thing is a big issue. Like I said, you can couple a tablet with a keyboard. With my iPad, I have a little bluetooth keyboard for when I need it, and the advantage of more mobility when I don't. (Try carrying and using a calendar or email program on an open laptop while
By the same token (Score:5, Interesting)
If you were going off to college and could only have one device,
Let's turn that around:
If you were home, which device would be the first to pick?
If you were at the beach, which device would you pick?
If you were on a train which device would you pick?
It is kind of obvious that PC is for work and tablet is for fun. No clear winner here.
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Whenever I'm on a consulting gig and I do a lot of talking, note taking and need to juggle a couple of developers back at home base I find I can't live without my Xoom. My company laptop has sit firmly in its docking station for the last half year or so.
Yep, I now mostly use my tablet for mind maps but I wouldn't want to write a spec on it. But it is neat when on the road. 3G was totally worth it.
Had to buy a new computer, tho. Tried to only have the tablet at home for 3 months and it simply was
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If you were going off to college and could only have one device,
Let's turn that around:
If you were home, which device would be the first to pick?
If you were at the beach, which device would you pick?
If you were on a train which device would you pick?
It is kind of obvious that PC is for work and tablet is for fun. No clear winner here.
For home, it depends on what I'm doing. If I'm reading a book in bed, I'd pick the tablet (or more likely, the eInk book reader), if I'm browsing a few websites on the couch, I'd pick the tablet. If I'm writing an email to my mom, I'd pick the netbook.
if I'm on the beach, I wouldn't bring any electronic device at all. Maybe a book if I was going to spend the day on the sand, but if I'm at the beach I'm probably there for the water, not to read a book or send an email.
On the train, I always pick the netbook
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Re:By the same token (Score:4, Insightful)
In 2007 laptops sales were overtaking desktop sales and by late 2008 in the US laptops outsold desktops. The reality was that most people did not want to upgrade machines, that the MS issue made buying machine cheaper than upgrading, and that $400 for 2 or three years of use was not outlandish to many. The simplicity of the machines made the popular. Somethings could not be done on the machine, but enough could. Coincidently, Gateway, who assembled desktops, sold itself at a bargain price around that time, and one unit was defunct by 2009.
Unimaginative and backward thinking business types think consumer attitudes will never change and the way things are done now will always be the way things are done. I don't know if I would ever move to a a tablet for my primary machine, but I do know that several years ago i moved to a laptop as my primary machine, having retired my desktop. Even more interesting is i have almost retired my 17" laptop and use a MacBook Air for the vast majority of my work. All my daily computing resources fit into a case that is about the size of a sunday magazine and a few inches thick.
I would argue that Dell needs to do something creative at this point. It is not doing badly but has seen no real growth since 2009 when it recovered. Essentially two years stagnant. In reality, the stock price, inflation adjusted, is the same as 1997, so that is 14 years of, on average, no growth. Dell, because it is dependent on the whims of MS, cannot really do anything to break out of the death cycle that in plaguing the PC industry, so it claims the cycle does not exist, in much the same way that an addict might deny the effect of the drugs. Something is coming to take over the PC. The PC is not working really well for a lot of people. It may not be tablets, but will be something.
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What a coincidence (Score:4, Informative)
Jerry Shen just Announced [cnet.com] a Tegra 3 tablet with ICS for $250.
Not Tablets (Score:2)
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Time to reprint a Slashdot comment! (Score:3, Insightful)
MICHAEL DELL
CEO and founder of Dell
From the time I was seven years old, I was captivated by blandness. When asked what kind of ice cream I wanted, the answer was always "Vanilla, please."
My favourite toy was an old sock that belonged to my grandfather. It was the most dull, lifeless white sock you had ever seen. I called it "Blandy". When I turned 13 my parents let me paint my room any colour I wanted. I picked a decidedly neutral beige paint. I didn't want any excitement in my room, just a calming dullness. My whole room was like that: beige walls, beige lampshades, beige bedding. The only contrast was when I would place Blandy on my pillow. My room was the ultimate in dull. Sitting in it was almost like floating in a sensory deprivation tank. Except you could see that glorious beige everywhere.
What are your memories of your first computer?
I bought my first computer when I was fifteen. It was a Radio Shack TRS-80. The silver-grey painted chassis caused too much excitement in my otherwise dull bedroom so I spray painted it beige. The cassette tape's door was a shiny bit of transparent plastic, far too eye catching. I used some 120 grit sandpaper to take off the glossiness. You couldn't read the tape labels through it after that, but I didn't care. It was a small price to pay in my quest for supreme dullness.
What modern technology do you wish you had growing up and why?
I've learned that technology on its own isn't what really matters. What's important is how dull it is. How you can get someone to spend their hard earned money on something then look at it and wonder "Why did I buy that?" To me, making items that has people doing just that, even before they receive their order confirmation, is the greatest thing ever.
Companies that go for excitement and innovation are certain to die. They have no future. Why, if it were up to me, I'd sell whatever company it was and give the money back to the shareholders. Printed on dull, beige cheques.
He's probably half right (Score:2)
I think which is best may depend on your field of study.
Missing the point (Score:2)
I think this guy is missing the point. The web is changing to make the experience on tablets and smartphones better. He seems to think that the internet is not going to change to adapt better to what people actually want to use, and it seems pretty clear that there are a fair number of people who would prefer to be using their phones or tablets than lugging around a laptop or taking up valuable home real estate with a desktop. If I can go to the library or a coffee shop or any other place with wireless and
Kodak thought so too... (Score:5, Interesting)
Our traditional film business is sound as digital imaging continues to evolve.
That was 10 years ago. The typical end-user desktop/notebook world probably has a similar life left. Just as a few specialty photographers still need film, there will always be niche professionals that need high-end desktop or notebooks, but most end users won't.
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Considering how unstable the industry is, I wouldn't try predicting anything personally. We could very well end up with desktops and laptops extremely rare, but so could we have desktops shift to the home cinema as HTPCs/consoles (with advances in voice commands like Kinect, which I've been very impressed by thus far, it's not as awkward as it might first seem) while laptops and tablets merge as one (think Transformer with more power and better integration, at that point what's the line between "laptop" and
The obvious choice is a laptop (Score:3)
It's all about the applications (Score:4, Interesting)
As soon as the apps I need are available and can be reasonably manipulated on a tablet, the laptop will be dead to me. Moreover, a tablet with sufficient resources could easily take the place of my PC, with *at most* a docking station.
Michael will continue to be right for awhile, but inevitably at some point he will be wrong. Hopefully (in my opinion) soon.
Re:It's all about the applications (Score:5, Interesting)
A friend of mine in college made a very good point.
She was watching the tablet owners walk into class.... Set up their tables in their docing stations and folding holders, lay out their bluetooth keyboards, plop down their mice, and prepare to work. Comparably, the laptop owners could set their device down, open it up, and begin talking notes.
The advantage of a tablet is lost when you have to carry around all the acessories you'd expect to see on a full size computer. The laptop will continue to improve. There's a nich for a tablet - some things it's more convenient for than a full size laptop... But also some real disadvantages. i don't see the laptop going away anytime soon.
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That student with the bluetooth/etc was very resourceful and was probably fine doing what he/she was doing. As more transformer styles of tablets show up everyone can give up the standard laptop or PC for college work.
LoB
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Agreed, which is why I stipulated "and can be reasonably manipulated". I do certain things on a laptop that can't yet be done conveniently on a tablet. I suspect that there *is* a way to do it, conveniently on a touch only interface. I'm holding off on buying a tablet until it can reasonably meet my needs in this regard.
I agree, if you're carrying bits and pieces along with your tablet everywhere you go, you picked the wrong device. But if you only dock it in the office and perhaps at home, and use it s
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Meanwhile, I sit down, open my binder, and begin writing right away.
I have a laptop and a tablet. I've written notes with it. But after a while I just got tired of it... there's nothing wrong with my hand writing, there's nothing wrong with my hands. Paper is cheap, it doesn't need a battery, and it doesn't need time to boot up. I can't get a virus, and I won't be tempted to check on Facebook or chat with a friend online.
I spent the last two years studying law. The majority of students took their notes with laptops. The reason for this became apparent to me very quickly - most people (in this demographic) can type much more quickly than they can write, especially as it is not necessary to look down at what you are writing. There was also the advantage of being able to index and search through the notes very easily in practicals, which took an order of magnitude longer when relying upon handwritten notes.
That said, pretty mu
Michael Dell: hardware prophet (Score:2)
not the full quote (Score:4, Funny)
He's probably right on the desktop (Score:2)
But I'm certain that for many people, a tablet is going to replace a laptop. A tablet is just that much more portable.
Good bye Dell (Score:4, Insightful)
Sounds like he's got the same problem most other giants have had at some point, just before they start gong down hill. They refuse to acknowledge the changing tide around them, and are unable ( unwilling ) to adapt.
The first step is denial.
We all have computers already. (Score:2)
I bought a tablet instead of upgrading my computer (Score:3)
I've been thinking about upgrading my over 5-year-old home-built computer for a few years now - I generally will do one computer upgrade a year. AMD Athlon X2 5000+, 2 GB RAM. Put 64 bit Windows 7 on it a few years ago - even though the conventional wisdom is that 64 bit Windows 7 needs 4 GB RAM, it ran fine on 2 GB for my needs. Last year I replaced my boot drive with an SSD, and
He's both right and wrong... (Score:2)
Probably a grain of truth (Score:2)
People don't need PCs (Score:3)
My mother, nope - doesn't need a PC. All she does it surf the internet and check her email. Pages is more than enough if she needed to write a word document.
If my grandparents needed a device? I'd get them a tablet. There is simply nothing they do that would require a PC. Email, photos? All through a tablet.
I don't see most of the population needed a PC anymore, it is simply too much for anything they would ever do.
Not to say there isn't a need for a PC market, but IMO that market is much smaller than most think.
and when they leave college that old laptop gets (Score:2)
And look at the transforming tablets too Mr Dell. With the added keyboard, some of the office apps market goes to the tablet market too.
LoB
Re:Mr Dell's reality distortion field (Score:5, Insightful)
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Incidentally, I have 2 Dell computers I bought refurbished originally manufactured in 2004(laptop) and 2005(desktop) that I bought for a couple hundred dollars each, and both with linux installed perform supe
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He's probably an American. They seem to think that if a market or company isn't growing continuously and exponentially, far greater than the rate of inflation or population growth, then it's "dying".
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The PC IS dying. Gamers moved to consoles,
Steam has grown 100% a year for seven years running.