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Mobile digital gadgets are overshadowing the personal computer, says Martin
Giles. Their impact will be far-reaching
IF YOU HAVE a phone, these days even space is within reach. Last year Luke
Geissb hler and his son, who live in Brooklyn, popped a high-definition video
camera and an Apple iPhone into a sturdy protective box with a hole for the
camera s lens. They attached the box to a weather balloon, which they released
about 50 miles (80km) outside New York City, after getting the approval of the
authorities. The balloon soared into the stratosphere and eventually burst. A
parachute brought it to the ground. By tracking the iPhone s inbuilt global
positioning system, the Geissb hlers were able to retrieve the box and the
video of their mission , which shows the curvature of the planet clearly. The
results can be seen at www.brooklynspaceprogram.org.
The iPhone and other smartphones are proving extremely useful on Earth too.
These devices, which let people download and install applications, or apps ,
from online stores run by phonemakers, telecoms companies and others, are
starting to displace ordinary mobile phones in many countries. Ofcom, Britain s
telecoms regulator, recently reported that more than one in four adults there
uses a smartphone. Nielsen, a market-research firm, reckons the devices make up
the majority of mobile-phone purchases in America. Emerging markets are
embracing them as well: in Indonesia, BlackBerry handsets made by Canada s
Research in Motion (RIM) have become a status symbol among the country s
fast-growing middle class.
Sales of tablet computers, though still small, are also growing rapidly. Since
Apple s iPad arrived last year, a host of rivals have appeared, such as RIM s
Playbook, Samsung s Galaxy Tab and Sony s Tablet. All eyes are now on Amazon's
Kindle Fire. With smartphones, which seem to be surgically attached to the hand
of every teenager and many an adult, tablets have opened up a new dimension to
mobile computing that is seducing consumers. Morgan Stanley, an investment
bank, believes that in 2011 combined shipments of smartphones and tablets will
overtake those of personal computers (PCs).
The revolution is mobile
This marks a turning-point in the world of personal technology. For around 30
years PCs in various forms have been people s main computing devices. Indeed,
they were the first machines truly to democratise computing power, boosting
personal productivity and giving people access, via the internet, to a host of
services from their homes and offices. Now the rise of smartphones and tablet
computers threatens to erode the PC s dominance, prompting talk that a post-PC
era is finally dawning.
PCs are not about to disappear. Forecasters expect 350m-360m of them to be sold
this year and the market is likely to keep growing, if slowly. With their
keyboards, big screens and connectivity to the web, PCs are still ideal for
many tasks, including the writing of this article. And they continue to evolve,
cheap, light ultrabooks being the latest in a long line of innovations. Even
so, the Wintel era dominated by PCs using Microsoft s Windows operating system
and Intel s microchips is drawing to a close. The recent news that HP, the
world s largest computer-maker, is thinking of spinning off its PC business to
focus on
A new tech landscape is taking shape that offers consumers access to computing
almost anywhere and on many different kinds of device. Smartphones are at the
forefront of this change. The Yankee Group, a research firm, thinks that sales
of these phones will overtake those of ordinary feature phones in many more
countries in the next few years. But other kinds of machine, from Microsoft s
Xbox 360 gaming console, which allows gamers to contact friends while they
play, to web-enabled television sets, are also helping people stay connected.
In part, this emerging array of devices reflects changes in society. As people
come to rely more heavily on the web for everything from shopping to social
networking, they need access to computing power in many more places. And as the
line between their personal and their work lives has blurred, so demand has
grown for devices that can be used seamlessly in both.
The consumer is king
The rise of tablets and smartphones also reflects a big shift in the world of
technology itself. For years many of the most exciting advances in personal
computing have come from the armed forces, large research centres or big
businesses that focused mainly on corporate customers. Sometimes these
breakthroughs found their way to consumers after being modified for mass
consumption. The internet, for instance, was inspired by technology first
developed by America s defence establishment.
Over the past ten years or so, however, the consumer market has become a hotbed
of innovation in its own right. The polarity has reversed in the technology
industry, claims Marc Andreessen, a prominent Silicon Valley venture
capitalist whose firm, Andreessen Horowitz, has invested in several consumer
companies, including Facebook and Twitter. Now, he says, many exciting
developments in information technology (IT) are appearing in the hands of
consumers first and only then making their way into other arenas a trend that
tech types refer to as the consumerisation of IT.
The transformation may not be quite as dramatic as Mr Andreessen s remark
implies. Armies, universities and other institutions still spend vast sums on
research, the fruit of which will continue to nourish personal technology.
Moreover, this is not the first time that individuals have taken the lead in
using new gadgets: the first PCs were often sneaked into firms by a few geeky
employees.
Nevertheless there are good reasons for thinking that the latest round of
consumerisation is going to have a far bigger impact than its predecessors. One
is that rising incomes have created a vast, global audience of early adopters
for gadgets. Around 8m units of the Kinect, a Microsoft device that attaches to
the Xbox and lets people control on-screen action with their body movements,
were sold within 60 days of its launch in November 2010. No
consumer-electronics device has ever sold so fast, according to Guinness World
Records. These people will absorb new technology on a scale that is simply
quite stunning, says Craig Mundie, Microsoft s head of research and strategy.
The cost of many gadgets is falling fast, giving another fillip to consumption.
Smartphones priced at around $100 after a subsidy from telecoms companies,
which make money on associated data plans are starting to appear in America.
The cheapest Kindle, an e-reader from Amazon, sells for $79, against $399 for
the first version launched in 2007. The cost of digital storage has also fallen
dramatically. A gigabyte (GB) of storage, which is roughly enough to hold a
two-hour film after compression, cost around $200,000 in 1980; today a disk
drive holding a terabyte, or 1,024GB, costs around $100.
The growth of the internet and the rapid spread of fast broadband connectivity
have also transformed the landscape. So has the rise of companies such as
Apple, Google and Amazon, whose main aim is to delight individuals rather than
businesses or governments. Apple, in particular, has been to the fore in the
democratisation of IT, creating a host of impressive devices such as the iPhone
and the iPad. Much of the credit for its success goes to Steve Jobs, who stood
down in August as its chief executive.
Techtonic shifts
This special report will examine in more detail the forces underlying the
reversal in polarity to which Mr Andreessen refers and how they are affecting
individuals, businesses and governments. The combination of new devices with
pervasive connectivity and plentiful online content is raising citizens
expectations of what personal technology can achieve. And it is leading them to
bring their own devices into the workplace, where some of the technology they
are expected to use now seems antediluvian by comparison. This trend is
challenging companies to rethink their IT departments habit of treating
employees as digital serfs who must do as they are told.
The burgeoning global market for smart consumer technology is also inspiring an
outpouring of entrepreneurial energy that will create many more remarkable
products. And it is encouraging organisations of all kinds to adapt innovations
from the consumer world for their own ends. Companies are setting up online app
stores for their employees; hospitals are handing out specially modified
smartphones to nurses; soldiers are trying out tablet computers to control
drones and experimenting with battlefield apps . Many more such opportunities
are likely to emerge as the technological and economic forces behind this
popular computing revolution gather steam.