Handed down on tablets

Remember how it was common knowledge a few years ago that tablets were fated to completely replace PCs, that by 2016 PCs on a desk would be as rare as ethics in an investment bank?

Yeah, not so much. I was one of the few people pushing back against that idea, and I was right.

The problem with tablets is that they aren’t really all that portable (where a smartphone is better) and you can’t get anything done on them. A real computer is a far better productivity tool.

At least 60% (and probably more) of the fall of PC sales is due to the fact they last longer now — a five-year-old PC is just as good as a new one, which was not true at all for the first twenty years of personal computer history.

But apparently people were shocked that sales fall when the replacement rate declines.