In his now famous “Dawn of a New Day” exit memo last fall, Ray Ozzie warned Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) employees that they had better prepare for what he called a post-PC world.
If numbers from a couple of recent IDC reports are to believed, that world could be upon us already.
Here's part of what Ozzie had to say, as a challenge of sorts for Microsoft employees to imagine this post-PC world:
And so at this juncture, given all that has transpired in computing and communications, it’s important that all of us do precisely what our competitors and customers will ultimately do: close our eyes and form a realistic picture of what a post-PC world might actually look like, if it were to ever truly occur.
The last sentence suggests that this post-PC vision is far off in the future, but Seth Weintraub writing in Fortune compared two recent reports from IDC and found that smartphones have actually passed PC shipments already. Let's look at the two charts from IDC.
This chart shows that 100.9 million smartphones were shipped.
I may not be a math genius, but even I can see that smartphones outsold PCs in the fourth quarter of 2010. I know that this is just one quarter, and it's based on IDC's counting methods (which involve a number of sources, including unit shipments from the manufacturers and analysis of upstream supply chain and downstream sales channel claims by suppliers).
We probably have to see some more data over a sustained period of time before we can mark this as a real trend, but clearly it shows we are in the midst of a market shift. That shift could be because we are moving to Ozzie's post-PC world more quickly than we thought, or it could be a result of ever-cheaper smartphones being sold across areas of the world where it's much more common to use a phone to access the Internet than to use a PC.
In a discussion the other day on Internet Evolution about the popularity of the Verizon iPhone, Michael Singer suggested, while taking a swipe at the quality of the AT&T network, that making calls was Job 1 of a cellphone. But I would argue that making calls has become secondary in the age of smartphones with apps and Internet access.
I know I use it more as a portable computer than a phone -- to look up things, to check the weather, sports scores, Facebook and Twitter, headlines, and even my AT&T monthly usage. It has become in many ways a replacement for my PC. (And it has a digital camera and my music on there, too.)
Whether or not this a long-term trend is impossible to say with any certainty, but these numbers look as if we have turned a corner into the next phase of computing and Internet access, and it's impossible not to feel that this is highly significant.
— Ron Miller is a freelance technology journalist, blogger, FierceContentManagement editor, and contributing editor at EContent magazine.
Although I spend most of my day either talking with people or working on the computer, we are definitely entering a post-pc world. So much of the daily technology needs can indeed by done by computer devices other than the standard PC.
Most of us can do most of what we need at the moment we need it using a device other than a PC. It is not always the best platform for our activity, but the always on, always there component almost always makes up for that. Things are afoot and there will be both good and bad consequences of this dramatic switch but it would be like trying to hold back the tides.
I'm fairly confident that the computers being used by the Bush administration were not the problem.
But it does make me nervous when the government starts sticking its nose in technology because reports like this make it crystal clear how clueless most politicians are in this regard.
Hey Ron, just remember that the Bush administration operated in Windows Me. And that was two or three years ago. Maybe that's the reason why they really didn't found WMD at all. They may have been relying on reports from the field based on the use of the proverbial indian water stick techniques and shamans to detect nuclear devices.
So its no strange that the courts are BEGINNING to reason that a Razor, an almost extinct gadget commonly not found anywhere (or in fact not for sale but free) MAY BE a computer. Its like praying to Jesus using prayers from the Talmud, a Confucian text or the Vedas. Something is profoundly mistaken.
It would be interesting to check on the MINT condition of that Razor (aka: the evidence). Calculating the time it took for the courts to get a technology decision in 2011 based on a Razor and rule upon it we may be witnessing that the courts are actually ruling our technological past. Then, it follows that present court cases will be judged upon historical definitions that are presently invalid.
Have the courts even heard of Moore's Law? Well, of course not. Moore was not a Justice. In their case, Moore's Law applies in reverse, that is, towards the past. Acording to it, this court ruled today based in three technological generations or more backwards in time!
Yes an interesting angle, but I don't need Congress to define what a computer is. I'm not sure why they even would (and a Razr isn't even a smart phone).
Just a difference in styles. Both came from guys who are former Microsoft executives. Elop was trying to light a fire under a company in trouble, while Ozzie was trying to be more diplomatic as he exited the company.
Eighth Circuit rules cellphone a computer: The 8th Circuit has ruled that a Motorola RAZR is, by law, considered a computer, according to New Orleans City Business. Engadget points out that the ruling highlights the fact that Congress, perhaps, should reevaluate its definition of a computer. Right now the definition of a computer as "an electronic, magnetic, optical, electrochemical, or other high speed data processing device performing logical, arithmetic, or storage functions," could apply to sophisticated kitchen appliances.
It seems that your column opens a new issue: WHAT IN FACT IS A COMPUTER?
> That memo has been the source of great inspiration to me in terms of ideas > for posts like this one. He is a great thinker and visionary. > I think Microsoft was foolish not to make better use of his ideas (but I'm not > surprised they didn't get him either).
Another great thing about this memo is its political correctness. He identifies the future, the gaps, the opportunities being missed - and all the time praising Microsoft & stressing what a great company it is.
How unlike to the recent memo by Nokia CEO - who has not been so kind to his company, his employees in his choice of words.
Thanks. That memo has been the source of great inspiration to me in terms of ideas for posts like this one. He is a great thinker and visionary. I think Microsoft was foolish not to make better use of his ideas (but I'm not surprised they didn't get him either).
> In his now famous “Dawn of a New Day” exit memo last fall, Ray Ozzie > warned Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) employees that they had better > prepare for what he called a post-PC world.
Thanks Ron for referring to a great blog here. I really admire Ray's foresight and what he describes as connected companions.
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