No no no no no. The PC will not 'die' because of smartphones. Use 30 min/30 sec metaphor

Now there are people who suddenly swing to the opposite extreme.. So yes, Morgan Stanley wrote a great report about the mobile internet (echoing very many themes we have written here for many years) and one of the most widely reported facts in it, was that the 'mobile internet' stage of computing will be 10 times bigger than the PC/internet era of computing. So far so good. Now, some analysts have jumped the gun, and now feel that brand new hot smartphones are 'so much' like personal computers, that they will kill of the PC.

No no no no no no no. No. No-no-no. NOOOOOO. No. That is TOTALLY misunderstanding. When the movies came, many thought they would kill off books. They didn't. Then when radio came, people thought it would kill of records. It didn't. When personal computers came, they did not kill of mainframe computers. And now that the mobile phone - in particular the smartphone - is increasingly accepted to be the newest type of computer - haha, welcome, join the club - there are those who think it will kill off the PC. It won't. There will be situations where the pocket computer/smartphone will be more convenient, and other times when the PC will be more of use. There are price factors, so more smartphones will be sold than PCs (already today more smartphones are sold than any portable PCs ie laptops, notebooks and netbooks combined).

30 Minute Tasks

So I have been using a metaphor to explain why mobile phones will not kill off PCs. I call it the 30 minute tasks / 30 second tasks metaphor. Here is how it works.

We have 30 minute tasks. These are the kind that we plan to do. So for example me now blogging for you. I planned to spend some time today doing my social networking 'duties' to my fans and followers. I spent some time on Twitter, some time on Forum Oxford, and then of course also here on the blog. I planned to do this today. When I do work in 30 minute tasks, I want to be seated, in a comfortable working situation, at a desk, with a good keyboard, a mouse, and a good large display. I do this with focus, often only one thing at a time. And we tend to 'create' in 30 minute task type of situations, with our fave tools, such as work stuff like Powerpoint, Word and Excel, or if we are seriously into our photography, we have the 'real' camera etc.

30 Second Tasks

Then we have 30 second tasks. They arrive suddenly and need our urgent attention. They may arrive while we happen to be at our PC for example via email or Skype or Twitter or Facebook, but more often they arrive when we are somewhere else, far from our PC. So they typically arrive on our phone. It may be a call, or a text message or some kind of alert or contact. With 30 second tasks, we deal with them immediately, while walking or standing, often single-handedly (which is why all addicted to SMS want single-handed operation on their phones, a lesson Blackberry has taken to heart and unfortunately many pure-touch screen phone makers have not learned yet). With 30 second tasks we more react than create, and we more consume than create. And very importantly, almost always when 30 second tasks arrive, we multitask - such as driving the car, taking a call in the car, and dealing with it while still driving. Or sending that text message while we are walking towards the train station, etc.

Now, for most of us reading this blog, we live in the Industrialized World. We have good paying white collar jobs. For people like us, we have easily within our income, the ability to own both a PC and a smartphone. Thus we have the luxury of choice. In this situation, we will tend to get optimal equipment for both 30 minute tasks and 30 second tasks. So yes, for most who currently own a PC, it will be a continuing situation.

For the Emerging World, while there will be plenty of PCs sold to that market, far more of the total population will never be able to afford a PC. Not even a 100 dollar netbook. I don't mean 'forever' but at least for the next decade. That means, that if you don't have a choice and your only digital gadget is your mobile phone - often a basic phone, may be even a second hand phone shipped to Africa from Europe or the Middle East for example; then there is no choice and you do the best you can with it - it means that many '30 minute task' type of jobs will be done with the 'wrong instrument' ie the phone.

Now, will there be exceptions? of course there will. If you really only had your laptop to do your emails, and then discovered the Blackberry, then like statistics show, many will stop carrying the laptop and only use the Blackberry. But if you do other PC work that requires the laptop, then while you may do 'more things' with your Blackberry and carry your laptop less often, you cannot abandon the PC because you need it for things that are not comfortable to do on the Blackberry. Same for iPhone, etc.

So, while I have explained that mobile is the newest mass medium - the 7th mass media in fact - and the internet on a PC is the 6th (older) mass medium, and I have searched and catalogued 'unique abilities' for mobile that you can't even do on a PC or the internet (nor any of the older 5 mass media like TV, radio and print) - I am not a 'fanatic' thinking its only mobile. No, both will co-exist. I have said that since my second book in 2002. And this 30 minute / 30 second tasks metaphor is very useful to help explain why the mobile, even the most advanced smartphones - will not kill off the PC.

Comments

[ARJWright]

Its easier to scale up than down. Mobiles designed for paradigms can do both, larger PCs fail at the shorter tasks because of how they are built.

For example, my mobile has tv-out functionality. So on those longer tasks, its plugged into my TV and a wireless keyboard facilitates the input tasks, while my Bleutooth headset and mobile's ability to take voice commands gives me a device working for voice and other response tasks.

Unfortunately, such a usage scenario is not ideal nor is the mobile's software optimized for TV-out resolutions (longer tasks paradigms) and so such is an exception rather than the norm, even for those at the front end of mobile use and innovation.

[krishna]

i completely agree with you, i think "one killing other" is a journalist hype as it makes a goo read. What is important in such situation is to see from business person's point of view, whether one would put one's money in what one is talking about.

[Henry Sinn]

Hi Tomi,
I agree and disagree.
What is a ‘personal’ computer after all? Some sort of box/casing with a CPU, memory and storage with some attached input and output devices....
Don’t most new high end smartphones fit this scenario with the exception of the larger and friendlier input and output devices?
What’s missing? Big screen. ‘Big’ keyboard. Desk and chair.
What if www.mobilehighdefinitioninterfaceworkinggroup.org get traction and all we have to do is plug in our ‘personal’ computer [that we carry in our pocket] to a friendly screen and keyboard for all those 30 minute + tasks?
Take Nokia’s N900. It’s a computer. It runs Linux. It has TV out and you can connect a keyboard. This is real today.
Unless you are a developer, hard-core-couch game player or anyone in the audio visual / media industries etc, why do you ‘need’ an old fashioned ‘personal computer’ on a desk or lap?

[Alex Kerr]

Tomi, agreed. But I think sooner rather than later what we call a PC will simply become a function of the phone, just as cameras, video cameras, sat navs have. And this is the way it should be, natural evolution. So yes, a device with decent screen size and keyboard and mouse allowing the sort of tasks we currently do on a PC will continue to be used of course, but I think the core will be the phone.

Now people will immediately argue that phones do not have enough power for some tasks. True, today. But phones are already about to get 1GHz processors in them, run Linux (so far more bang for the buck) and are really very capable (and have been for a while) of full web browsing and office software on a TV size screen. So this scenario is perfectly possible.

It also does nothing to undermine the continuation of the PC concept to suggest the above scenario, and also that keyboard, screen and main unit (CPU) are separate. I already live this scenario with my laptop as CPU. So we're just talking about physically shrinking that component really.

This is yet another reason why I have predicted the radical decline of Microsoft for a while now - because the phone will eat the PC/laptop with the above scenario, and MS have no viable play in the mobile phone space (market share now below 1% of all phones AFAIK?), especially with a view to the future. Windows Phone is in probably terminal decline, and is now barely significant even in the smartphone sector (under 9%). This is interesting - the "personal computer" of the future, whether in phone or laptop or desktop form factor, is much much less likely to run an MS OS. Now that is a radical change from the last 20 years of the PC era.

[ARJWright]

@alex: MS's "mobile" play is going to be one the services side. They have the ideal of "three screens and a cloud" - to which mobile fits in easily as a screen, but the center of things is fo service-cloud.

And even in that scenario, mobile still scales up pretty well. So your points aren't moot at all, just making a note about where MS is positioning themselves in relation to some of the other service entities (Google, Nokia, Apple, etc.).

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[em]

PC at home, as we have known it, is now disappearing. It will take years, no doubt, but knowing the replacement rates of phones and PCs, it won't take too long.

Big screen and better inputs will stay, but "the box" will disappear. Phones now have connectivity for displays (TV-OUT, HDMI), keyboard and mouse (USB, Bluetooth), and of course for audio etc.

For 30 minute task the phone will be connected to the big display and keyboard, and then picked up and put into a pocket for 30 second task.

Of course there are special tasks for heavy calculation, advanced games etc, but that will be marginal. For most, the phone with proper inputs will suffice.

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Now people will immediately argue that phones do not have enough power for some tasks. True, today. But phones are already about to get 1GHz processors in them, run Linux (so far more bang for the buck) and are really very capable (and have been for a while) of full web browsing and office software on a TV size screen. So this scenario is perfectly possible.

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Now people will immediately argue that phones do not have enough power for some tasks. True, today. But phones are already about to get 1GHz processors in them, run Linux (so far more bang for the buck) and are really very capable (and have been for a while) of full web browsing and office software on a TV size screen. So this scenario is perfectly possible.

[china electronics]

Tomi, agreed. But I think sooner rather than later what we call a PC will simply become a function of the phone, just as cameras, video cameras, sat navs have. And this is the way it should be, natural evolution. So yes, a device with decent screen size and keyboard and mouse allowing the sort of tasks we currently do on a PC will continue to be used of course, but I think the core will be the phone.welcome to our china electronics

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@alex: MS's "mobile" play is going to be one the services side. They have the ideal of "three screens and a cloud" - to which mobile fits in easily as a screen, but the center of things is fo service-cloud.

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