Welcome to the PC-Plus Era
Welcome to the PC-Plus Era by Kevin Kieller
We have clearly entered the "PC-Plus Era." By this I mean most of us in our personal and business lives use both a traditional desktop or laptop personal computer and a mobile phone and/or tablet personal computer.
These exciting devices and their new much more mobile form factors have opened up new business and personal opportunities for collaboration and unified communication solutions.
Many have incorrectly termed this the "Post-PC Era" but clearly these new devices are personal computers simply in a smaller and more mobile form factor. In the same way that laptops or netbooks were simply smaller PCs, I would suggest that the same holds for smartphones and tablets, slates or "pads."
And equally clearly, traditional PCs, which according to IDC are forecasted to GROW by 9.3% in 2012 and then by 11% annually between 2013 and 2015, are not disappearing.
While celebrating the rise of tablet computers, especially the iPad, keep in mind that PC sales in two months (approximately 65 million according to IDC) exceed all of the iPads sold to date. Even by 2015, the cumulative number of people using tablets will only be 59 million, according to Forrester. On the other hand, by 2008 there were approximately 1 billion personal computers in use, with the total installed base growing at approximately 12% per year. For those that think that tablet use is somehow replacing personal computer use, keep in mind that even in 2015 it is projected that there will be 32 PC users for every one tablet user.
Users who create large amounts of information, software developers, engineers, financial analysts, data entry clerks, and many others are not going to trade the traditional desktop or laptop form factor PC for a new tablet PC. As laptops increasingly represent fewer trade-offs compared to more non-portable desktop designs, the standard "desktop" PC is much more likely to become a laptop in most organizations. Tablet PC sales may displace some laptop sales for users who primarily consume information; however, I suspect tablet PC sales will cannibalize netbook sales perhaps to a larger degree than projected by Forrester. Here again though, the definition of when a netbook becomes a laptop greatly impacts the numbers.
The story is different for smartphones, which I also argue are really small PCs that can also make phone calls. By 2015, according to some analysts there are expected to be 1.7 billion smartphones in use. This means by 2015 there may be as many smartphones as traditional PCs in use. As validation of the "PC plus" descriptor, note that people use smartphones in addition to their existing PCs.
Taking all of the above, along with a few other data points, in the year 2015 the "PC Plus Era" is shaping up to look as follows:
- 60 million tablets in use (iPads, Android and Windows 8 devices),
- 1.7 - 2.0 billion PCs in use (includes desktop and laptop form factors), and
- 1.5 - 1.9 billion smartphones in use
So what does this mean for organizations, resellers and unified communication vendors?
For organizations
While according to Nielsen at present 44% of U.S. mobile subscribers have smartphones, over the next few years this will increase to close to 100% and these users will expect to be able to use their smartphones at work. This means organizations will need to formalize their BYOD (bring your own device) strategies and begin implementing the mobile device management (MDM) solutions necessary to manage access to corporate data.
The numbers suggest that fewer users will bring personal tablets to work but you should develop a policy related to allowing these devices to connect to your networks. Desktop virtualization options can allow tablets to connect without leaving data on the unsecured personal device. The challenge becomes that desktop virtualization technology currently has trouble handling real-time communications such as voice and video.
Providing tablets as a viewer into dashboards for other IT initiatives may present a great opportunity to raise the profile of another application implementation project with your executive. Demonstrating a web conference on a tablet device might just be the "sizzle" your UC or Collaboration project requires.
For resellers
Some significant niche opportunities exist for tablet-based solutions. Some of these opportunities have actually existed for years but with the consumer awareness of tablet devices, primarily driven by the iPad, organizations are now more open to demonstrations of these type of solutions.
Solutions based on corporate-focused "purpose-built" devices such as the Cisco Cius will also likely get a better audience in the present "tablet-friendly" (dare I say tablet crazed) environment.
In the longer-term, supporting a platform that provides Collaboration and UC solutions across desktop, laptop, tablet and smartphone PC form factors will be where the customers will flock.
For vendors
Tablets are clearly "sexy" and extending your current offerings to embrace tablet devices is a good way to generate interest and position your solutions as "leading edge." However, this should not be done at the expense of supporting the traditional PC platform and certainly not at the expense of supporting the vastly larger smartphone market.
Even Microsoft with its "Windows everywhere" focus has announced that Lync clients for Apple iOS and Android devices will be available before the end of this calendar year. (Research in Motion already has a BlackBerry client that works with Lync as long as you are running BES 5.0.3). Clearly Microsoft has chosen not to ignore the burgeoning smartphone market even as it seeks to gain a piece of this market with its Windows Phone devices.
If you compete with Microsoft, you can choose to externally use the "Post-PC" moniker to mean, as many do, "Post-Windows," but internally you should understand that neither traditional desktop/laptop PCs nor "Windows" are going away any time soon.
The form factor choices for personal computing devices are expanding but personal computers are not going anywhere, many of us will simply own more PCs each adapted to a specific set of tasks we need to accomplish. Welcome to the PC-Plus Era.