It's been a tough few months for the personal computer.
Last week, it was Apple CEO Tim Cook saying that PC was "no longer the center of your digital world" and proffered his view that the company's new iPad will be the poster child of the post-PC revolution as users look to devices that "need to more portable, more personal and dramatically easier to use than any PC has ever been.”
Today, market researcher Gartner Inc., offering up its thoughts on the post-PC era, says that personal clouds — online services that let consumers "seamlessly store, sync, stream and share using multiple connected devices such as smartphones, media tablets, televisions and PCs over the Internet" — will replace the PC as the center of our digital lives by 2014.
"Emerging cloud services will become the glue that connects the web of devices that users choose to access during the different aspects of their daily life," Gartner analyst Steve Kleynhans, said in a statement today.
While cloud services are not new — online backup services have been around for years — Gartner says that adoption of Internet-enabled mobile devices like smartphones and media tablets, consumers increasing comfort level with technology and their exposure to cloud-based services such as Netflix, Google Apps, Amazon Music, Microsoft SkyDrive and Apple's iCloud is driving demand for such services.
Consumers will spend about $2.8 trillion worldwide on consumer mobile devices, the services that run them and content that is transferred through them by 2015, Gartner says.
"Many call this era the post-PC era, but it isn't really about being 'after' the PC, but rather about a new style of personal computing that frees individuals to use computing in fundamentally new ways to improve multiple aspects of their work and personal lives," Kleynhans said. "Users will use a collection of devices, with the PC remaining one of many options, but no one device will be the primary hub. Rather, the personal cloud will take on that role.
PC Sales 'Weak,' iPad Pre-Orders 'Off the Charts'
Gartner's findings come a week after it released its 2012 forecast for the PC market, noting that PC sales will remain "weak." Shipments are expected to rise to 368 million units, up 4.4 percent from 2011, as consumers opt for mobile devices such as media tablets and smartphones. Gartner said it remains to be seen whether lightweight ultrabooks and the new version of Microsoft's operating system — Windows 8 — that is due this year will provide a "compelling offering that gets the earlier adopter of devices excited about PCs again.”
Meanwhile Apple, which introduced it third generation of the iPad tablet on March 7, continues to capitalize on the trend in mobile computing it says it helped create with the release of the iPhone and iPad. The company has already sold more than 55 million iPads since it brought the device to market in 2010 and analysts predict Apple may sell as many as that this year alone.
Apple has said that demand has been "off the charts" for the new iPad, which goes on sale March 16 in the U.S. Barclays Capital analyst Ben Reitzes, in a investor note today, said that the quantity available for pre-order sold out on March 9, and that users who placed an order last weekend will have to wait until March 19 or later to receive their device. "Apple likely pre-sold millions of devices in the first weekend," Reitzes wrote.
“In many ways, the iPad is reinventing portable computing,” Cook said at last week's unveiling. “When we’re talking about the post-PC world, we’re talking about a world where the PC is no longer the center of your digital world, but rather just a device. We’re talking about a world where your new devices, the devices you use the most, need to be more portable, more personal and dramatically easier to use than any PC has ever been.”
