Symbian predicts the death of the PC
In a keynote address in London recently the CEO of Symbian, Nigel Clifford, told attendees that the huge growth of smartphone sales spells impending doom to the PC. He went on to indicate that the PC would be dead in 5 years, due to growing capabilities of the smartphone. Now, I am as appreciative of advancements in mobile technology as the next guy but I would stop far short of claiming that smartphones with their small screens would kill off the PC. I can back that up with two words– spreadsheets and presentations. Try building those on your smartphone with its tiny keyboard and screen. His statements make for good sound bites, though.
(via CNET)
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ROFL. And that’s all I have to say about that!
Did he pound his shoe on the lectern while shouting, “We will bury you”, too? Smartphones are pretty important in the market today, and they are expanding, but saying that they’ll be the exclusive solution to every mobile computing problem is just too much like Cold War bombast.
(Small voice: Besides, we all know that UMPCs are that solution. Right?)
— Steve
Unbelievable.
Yeah, well, he must have gotten infected by Nokia. They introed their latest round of chi-chi $$$ smartphones with the tagline, “It’s what the computer has become.”
The next generation of cell phone processors supports video-out at much higher resolution. Enough to drive amonitor and host a keyboard /mouse. Even Bill Gates acknowledged this when talking about the OLPC project. Thats why microsoft is in the cell phone operating system in the first place.
John is right, for people that only use computers for browsing the internet, sending e-mail and doing light Office work, a smartphone connected to a monitor and keyboard/mouse setup would be all they need.