re Dead PC. Andrew Seybold, the "wireless king" (Outlook) stated in his recent issue that the notion of the PC dying is not accurate. His statement:
"PDA promoters claim you'll do everything on your PDA that you now do on your desktop. Send and receive email? Yes. Check stock prices and make trades? Sure. Schedule airline flights? Yep. Get weather and traffic reports? Of course. Surf the Net and download info? Not so fast!...Surfing on a PDA? It won't be fun! Surfing requires search menus, scrolling downloading, viewing pages, all of which is better suited to a desktop with a mouse, monitor, and printer, than it is to a PDA with its mini screen...with your PDA you're going to choose "active content" over browsing. My associate Barney Dewey, a forward-thinking technologist...coined the term "active content". It describes content "pushed" out to you automatically, as opposed to content you "pull" off the web as a result of browsing."
In other words, the PDAs will only offer "selective content". This content is, actually, downloaded from the PC! This is a method even Nokia has set up in connection with their handsets. Nokia has also set up a handset so that "active content" can be downloaded directly from the internet - the problem with this solution is that you must "surf" the internet FIRST in order to arrive at the content you want inscribed or added. PDAs replacing the PC are at least ten years away from even coming close. Many things must first come.
The "dead" PC remains a bad notion. I realize that Nok's CEO (for whom we all have infinite respect) believes the handset will replace the PC - WELL OF COURSE HE DOES HE SELLS HANDSETS. He also lives in Finland where the society is fully wired. Interestingly though, PC sales in the Scandinavian countries were up more these past few quarters than in the past. Does this mean that the handset lovers are coming to understand that a handset without a PC can be limiting? The answer to this question to the many who live there and have become handset dependent - yes.
In reference to dying or rising products in the wireless community, Andrew has been near perfect. I'll take his view over other sellside analysts who are negative on the future of the PC. Andrew bases his PDA comments on years of research in the wireless community. His statement comes across as hokey, but it is backed up by many technological milestones that must be first achieved. Both sellside and buyside research his views relative to which companies to buy into.
Come to think of it. Seybold writes a lot like Kemble. Maybe they're cousins. |
