Apparently Gizmodo is ready to call desktop computers dead. Laptop sales outpaced desktop sales 4 to 1 in the last year. I guess it’s time for Dell, HP and Apple to pack up those plants and quit. Not so fast…
What else is dead?
It seems to me that home stereos should be dead also. I am sure portable music systems (iPods) outsell component stereos by a much wider margin. I guess we should stop making those too. While we are at it, let’s cancel any remaining orders for landline telephone systems and stop making books too. I am guessing that you are probably already getting my point. There are always going to be portable versions of pretty much anything that we use. There will even be cases (like with laptops) that they are more practical, just as economical and outsell the non-portable variety by large margins. But dead?
What is a Niche anyway?
I am willing to bet that if I did a quick survey down the office here at Microsoft, I would come out in an overwhelming majority of people that would freak out if you took their desktops and made them work exclusively on laptops. Here multiple monitors, multiple hard drives, unusual rats nests of connected hard drives, web cameras, speakers, headsets, telephone systems (and that’s just my desk!) are the norm. The point is we USE our desktops. At home I have an audio recording rig that I would never want exclusively on a laptop. My wife is buying a monster desktop to edit video, put her back on a single cpu and she would smack your face off.
The same would go for most people who really productively use a computer. I don’t mean to belittle checking email, chatting and surfing (in private mode I hope) all the porn you can handle. But for graphic designers, analysts, developers, media producers and other hard core users who need fast processors, multiple monitors, and might actually want to be able to upgrade components from time to time, the desktop is still king.
Who said you had to be king of the largest kingdom?