Windows 9 and Future of PC

Windows Releasing Windows 9, into Dropping PC Market

ExtremeTech reported that Microsoft will release a new OS called “Threshold.”

Details are not revealed yet, but there should be a lot of “better” features which may intrigue us.

When I saw the news, I thought, “is Microsoft serious?

Desktop market has been certainly shrinking, replaced by tablet computers.

Still, there are clear winners.  

From the last quarter of 2012 to the last quarter of 2013, a few major companies, HP, Acer, ASUS, and others had minus growth ranging -7.2% to -19.0%, while other two, Lenovo and Dell, still increased the units shipped (Gartner Jan.9.2014).

This little datas show that the evolution of the personal computers have been diverging.

Divergent Evolution

Now, let’s talk a little bit about the evolution.

In Origin of Species, Darwin said humans were originally monkeys.  When I learned this in school, I thought, “Then, current monkeys are potentially evolving to humans in 100 years later?”  This question remained for years, and recently I figured that the evolution isn’t like what I imagined.

We humans were certainly monkeys, but this is a result of divergent evolution.  So what is it?

I looked through a few books and wikipedia, and it seems to be like this - let’s say there are 10 monkeys.  they used to live in the same area 10,000 years ago.  

One day, five monkeys decided to travel a little bit more north than their usual range for excursion.  On the way back, they lost the way and had no choice but to make living in the unfamiliar area, where is colder and with less food.  They must adapt the environment, so they learned how to process food so as to keep them for winter, their mouths became smaller so they don’t have breathe cold air in.

On the other hand, the other five monkeys stayed at the warmer area, they had plenty of food and do not need to worry about storing them.  So certain part of their brain doesn’t evolve as much as the other five in colder area because they are less necessary to worry about the future.  Because of the optimistic atmosphere, the monkeys in warmer area talk more, and their mouths evolve bigger and wider.

Although the evolution of the two groups of monkey is a total fiction, the fact is that the monkeys evolved in certain ways never go back to the original state.  This is basically how the evolution diverge.

In the case of real monkeys and humans, current monkeys will be more like monkeys, maybe with more hair and bigger bodies, and humans will be more like humans, maybe with bigger brains.

Divergent Evolution in Computing

Steve Jobs gave a good analogy, he said, the PC is like a truck.  When car was invented, the car meant truck and everyone was using one of them, but later, other models for other usage, like sedans, light vehicles, vans, buses and coupes, were created, yet trucks are used, but not as popular as they used to be.   Now, PC’s functionality has been taken by smartphones and tablets.  Consumers of electronics will make easier choice on tablets and phones, rather than stuffy PCs.

Still, PC will remain as an important tool for heavier and more memory consuming tasks, such as movie making and graphic design.  In this thinking, Apple has taken a right way by creating Mac Pro which is more for professional and heavy purpose with just a lot of processing power.

So, what’s the future?  Personal computers will diverge more and adapt to more diverge demands.

There will be even smaller and thinner laptops, phones and tablets, or more powerful, versatile, yet the same size of desktops.  The diversion could happen more in the software than hardware, which can be already found in the iPad uses in many different industries.

Is this diversion a good thing?  I believe it definitely is.  We will have more choices in better price, higher functionality and the most importantly, more personalized for us.