After the PC economist.com
Oops, on the subject of ease of use, and that 52%, Bill's former friends at The Economist have this article up this week. The story is mostly about so-called appliances. Quote for amusement only, especially the second paragraph.
The PC will lose its status as the universal computing solution because of its own failings and the promise of new technologies. The PC is just too complicated for most of the computing that users want at home. Applications such as Microsoft Word or Quicken are excellent if you want graphics-rich documents and sophisticated financial management. (And people who want such things will own at least one PC.) But for sending and receiving e-mail, playing games or Web-surfing, the PC is cumbersome, unstable and slow to boot-and usually in the wrong room.
PC household penetration in America seems stuck at about 40%. Not many home users approach their machines with confidence, other than for the most routine tasks. When PCs run new applications successfully, most people feel relief and almost pathetic gratitude-a standard of reliability tolerated in no other consumer product.
I ought to leave that go without comment, but with UCC article 2b and all that, looks like standards aren't going to rise soon. Needless to say, I'm not in the "almost pathetic gratitude" camp.
Cheers, Dan. |
