The e-business world started turning upside-down in February and finished in April. That's when the iPhone overtook Outlook as the most popular email client, according to recent research.
We've been hearing a lot about how mobile is becoming mainstream, and businessses need to support mobile as a primary channel to customers. People call it the "post-PC era." But recent information shows that assessment is wrong. The ascendancy of mobile isn't happening. It already happened. And mobile and desktop aren't coexisting side by side as primary platforms. Mobile has become primary, and the desktop is evolving into a niche product.
The change from desktop to mobile happened fast. In June 2011, 53 percent of emails opened by users were opened on desktops, 29 percent on Webmail, and 18 percent on mobile. The three platforms converged to within a percentage point of one another in February, and then desktop resumed its lead. But by April, mobile was the clear leader, with 36 percent of openings, compared with 33 percent for desktop and 31 percent for Webmail. (Note that Webmail is relatively flat for that period.)
Here's the relevant chart, a portion of the infographic:
The iPhone was the No. 1 mail client, with a 20 percent marketshare. Outlook had 18 percent.
Want some more recent information? PC sales have gone "into a tailspin," according to a Wall Street Journal report Wednesday. Third-quarter PC shipments fell more than 7 percent from a year earlier -- the steepest drop since at least 2001, according to reports from IDC and Gartner. PC shipments for the full year will decline for the first time in 11 years, according to IHS iSuppli.
The WSJ blames the decline on the sluggish economy, cannibalization by tablets, and slowing sales to Third World countries. It speculates that Windows 8 might reignite demand.
But the WSJ is overthinking it.
Sluggish economy? Sure, but it's better than it was in 2008, and yet PC sales declined now but not then.
Reduced demand in Third World countries? The WSJ is getting warmer there. Tablet sales? Warmer still.
What's cannibalizing PC sales is mobile computing. Mobile is particularly in demand in developing countries. And tablets are part (but, of course, not all) of the mobile phenomenon.
The PC is becoming a niche product, like high-end workstations and mainframes. And that's the best-case scenario for PC vendors -- it's possible that the PC is simply obsolete, like the desktop electronic calculator and the minicomputer.
PC demand is in an inevitable downward spiral. Windows 8 won't ignite it. A Zippo and a bottle of lighter fluid won't ignite it. The PC is on its way out.
What this means for the enterprise is that you should stop thinking about extending your e-business strategy to mobile, because that still assumes the primacy of the desktop. Business just doesn't happen mainly on the desktop anymore. Mobile is the mainstream platform now.
Businesses that fail to learn that lesson will simply fail.
I studied engineering, and for years, our excuse was that "we have PC-only software". A good friend of mine had a Mac as his first computer and never looked back... he found a way to make it through.
This applies to PCs and smartphones/tablets... if you want, there's a way to get rid of everything you don't want.
It's not odd,Kim.It's just a boring environment or loneliness.I am doing all the time, hoping to get something from my friends, though I have to admit- it looks like addiction.
I do still find the need to check messages all the time, at leisure as well as at work, odd. How did the modern world get built by people who couldn't do that?
I'm with you and Kim on being "cubicle drones" kq4ym. As you point out, though, the high volume use of the real-time computing acess (constantly checking messages) by the new and younger users may turn we PC majority users into the minority.
Thank goodness computing, whether PC's or mainframes, will always hold their niche though.
It appears to me niche markets might be the way to describe the devices. I personally spend most all my time as the desk so mobile is not of any real use to me.
But then, to a growing majority it seems, carrying a mobile device is like carrying your keys or wallet, it's just something you do. Whether it's as necessary as keys or wallet is another question, but checking messages reapeatedly throughout the day via mobile is becoming a habit. Whether that good or efficient is another question.
Yes, but don't you see -- true mobile computing also means the end of the cubicle as well as the desktop and maybe the whole office!
And mobile is a different kind of computing device...its perceptive abilities are quite more than a standard desktop. By that I mean it is a walking film studio, capable of scanning, recording, photographing and then streaming, broadcasting the entire environment!
Perhaps sitting and looking a spreadsheet and evaluting numbers -- gets replaced with walking around the retail store, watching customers...and reporting back...directly!
It's a complete challenge to what our jobs are about!
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Facebook and Twitter are great for posting cat pictures. But are people really using social media for life-changing communications? Like, if a hurricane comes by and blows down their house?
In a standout presentation at the Jefferies 2013 Global Technology, Media & Telecom Conference in New York this week, the UK government talked about becoming a "very intelligent client."
A consumer business would have to be crazy or desperate to change call-center software in December, the peak of the holiday season. But that was exactly Positec's position.
To help enterprises deploy software faster for mobile, social, big-data, and cloud applications, IBM this week acquired development tools vendor UrbanCode.
A survey by JD Powers found that customer interest in product features is lessening as phones evolve. Rather than features, price is driving purchases, and that change could have a dramatic impact on how IT departments secure these devices.
Analysts, writers, and – most recently – Steve Jobs have been condemning cellular phone fragmentation. Alan says, "Phooey! Fragmentation is a good thing!"
New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority is conducting a pilot test of digital kiosks to guide subway users to where they want to go more efficiently and at lower cost.
Subsidized handsets, rather than locked handsets, should be the focus of regulators. We're not getting good deals, not fostering innovation, and weakening our power as buyers.
Now apparently the mobile platform of choice, the Apple iPhone has benefited from its sound understanding of human factors and ergonomics – but is this reputation threatened by a looming avalanche of advertising?
The decision could discourage innovators looking to the past, and require companies to build from the ground up, leading to a new generation of stagnation in the IT world.
New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority is conducting a pilot test of digital kiosks to guide subway users to where they want to go more efficiently and at lower cost.
The whole Amazon.reader debate is a double-stupid. It's stupid to think that there's any e-book buyer who doesn't know Amazon's URL, and it was stupider to let ICANN launch the whole free-form TLD initiative to start with.
While NFC's original goal was to enhance mobile commerce applications, it is finding its way into a number of other uses, which is creating both opportunity as well as challenges for IT departments.
Enterprises would like to move to cloud computing but are hesitant because they are concerned about providers’ ability to secure company data. Here are some tips that help to ensure that if breaches occur, the business is not left holding the bag.
Edmunds separates customers into segments based on the info it collects on its site and from partners, and uses that to push out custom content, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
The automotive website uses propensity modeling to target ads and customer registration forms, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
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