Life As It Goes By

Not long ago, BusinessWeek published an article on “How Low Can PC Prices Go?” This marked a turning point of the market. As former Intel’s boss, Andrew Grove, formulated that, in every ten years, there will be an “X” factor that can drive the business out of the industry. The so-called “strategic inflection point” began perhaps at the time when everyone is competing to build cheap computers for the less fortunate in African countries or others. It happened: $199 for 2 very basic laptops (See article “Laptop Giving”). Another contributing factor could be that of embedded systems especially that of mobile phone. As the demand for higher processing power grows, the cost of making a super computer in palm size dives.The third would be coming from the main drivers of this PC technology themselves. The 2 giants, Intel and AMD, had succeeded in putting 2 or even 4 cores into what used to be a single core chipset (getting much help from other rivals in the embedded systems: ARM, MIPS, Freescale and IBM). The result of this success is that the big gap that exists between the actual needs of people and the offers of the existing technology. Why a user (usually 1 of the 4 types: Internet user, gamer, office worker and scientist) requires such processing power? Probably, only the scientists would applaud, provided they are able to fully utilize all the core processors at all time.

What the latest trend reveal is “low price”. Saturation point has already been reached in most countries when PC penetration is already high. The sales of mobile PCs, i.e. laptop, notebook, tablet, UMPC or Netbook are catching up with those of desktop PCs. However, both are not totally complementary. The PC industry was the most envied by all for the past decades. Every year, regardless of the economic condition, users were busy upgrading their computers, components and accessories. It took a while for everyone to break off such addictions and remain faithful to their old PCs.

Though software problems continue to be a pain for all and total upgrade (both hardware and software) is always a viable option, take-up rate for replacement PCs would remain low for quite some time, especially for home users. Windows Vista hasn’t impressed many yet. Many companies have decided to jump ahead by adopting Windows 7. The question is how sure are they that Windows 7 would be a better choice? The problem with the relationship between software and hardware is that faster hardware doesn’t always mean faster software. Software exploited the great capabilities (in terms of memory or other data storage, graphics and network bandwidth) provided by the ever-evolving hardware. Coding doesn’t have to be stringent anymore. The hardware resources available are more than enough for all the basic tasks performed by users. So, why is there a need for a lean and fast software?

Back to Andy’s X factor, it doesn’t really have to be something you see on the headlines everyday. It could be a silent killer. Something that everyone knows about but choose to ignore it. Once in a while, critics come and go. And when it happens, everything seems to be too late. Netbooks do have the potential to become such a factor. Its immediate impact is the drastic drop in price of mobile PCs. The prices of desktop PCs have never crossed those of the mobile PC. Hence, the mobile PC can be considered as the premium sector of the market. But now, with Netbooks, the gap between desktop PCs and mobile PCs has, all of a sudden, vanished. Even Macbook Air, a cousin from the royal family, gives a laughing stock. Its price, being 4 times of a decent Netbook, is unthinkable for some technie guys. Using the same chipmaker, with less storage (disregard whether it’s solid state or rotating disk) and slightly more memory, Macbook Air only provides the main difference in the software used (let’s not talk about the graphics processor since the screen is too small to talk about HD…). Is MacOS X worth this much? XP is always well-liked by many users. If not, a friendlier Linux for Net-savvy users isn’t that bad as welll. As you can see, cost becomes the main driver of today’s PC market. And today’s technological trends have enabled this to take place. The ying and the yang has brought the harmony between the market and the technology driving behind it. PC commodization has already occurred. It’s not in everyday’s news. It’s in part of our lives. The next time you walk into the stores and look at the wide variety of PC solutions. You will realize that the decision comes slightly faster than before and you are more confident of the choice you would make.