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Larry Dignan, Andrew Nusca and Rachel King
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Microsoft's big task: Juggle PC, post-PC eras

By | September 13, 2011, 2:35am PDT

Summary: Windows 8 is one mammoth hedge on the possibility that PCs won’t be able to evolve well in a land of Android and Apple smartphones and tablets.

Microsoft won’t publicly acknowledge the concept of a post-PC era, but its actions speak louder than its words. Add it up and Windows 8 may be Microsoft’s biggest OS launch in its history.

Why? Windows 8 will reveal whether Microsoft can keep its cash cow franchise relevant going forward. IDC estimates that by 2015 there will be more people accessing the Internet via mobile devices than wired tools such as the PC.

ZDNet’s Great Debate, which will examine whether the post-PC era talk is bunk or reality, will look at the issue, but Microsoft’s moves are telling. To wit:

  • Windows 8 is a refresh designed to keep the PC upgrade cycle going and bring its Metro interface to the mix (PC era).
  • The operating system is also designed to work on tablets and bridge the gap between the PC and tablet (post PC era).
  • Windows 8 will have a flavor for the ARM architecture that happens to run smartphones and tablets everywhere (post PC era).
  • Microsoft’s new Start screen is designed to work equally well with a mouse and touch screen (both PC and post-PC eras).

In other words, Windows 8 is one mammoth hedge on the possibility that PCs won’t be able to evolve well in a land of Android and Apple smartphones and tablets. Ironically, the tablet market is actually playing to Microsoft’s favor. By being way late to the game, Microsoft allowed a parade of iPad rivals to fall—HP TouchPad and various Android devices—while enjoying pent up demand. The enterprise wants an Office integrated tablet. If Microsoft can deliver with Windows 8 it can navigate the tablet market.

Ed Bott outlined what he expects from Windows 8 themes. Others will have their impressions in the days to come. George Ou at the High Tech Forum argues that the PC and the Wintel platform will evolve going forward.

In the end, the largest question is whether Microsoft can juggle both the PC and post-PC era in the future. The stakes—Microsoft’s key cash cow—is at stake.

Also:

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Topics

Era, PC, Microsoft Corp., Microsoft Windows 8, post-PC, Microsoft Windows, Tablets, Desktops, Operating Systems, Software, Hardware, Notebooks & Tablets, Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet's sister site TechRepublic.

Disclosure

Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan has nothing to disclose. He doesn’t hold investments in the technology companies he covers.

Biography

Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet's sister site TechRepublic. He was most recently Executive Editor of News and Blogs at ZDNet. Prior to that he was executive news editor at eWeek and news editor at Baseline. He also served as the East Coast news editor and finance editor at CNET News.com. Larry has covered the technology and financial services industry since 1995, publishing articles in WallStreetWeek.com, Inter@ctive Week, The New York Times, and Financial Planning magazine. He's a graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism and the University of Delaware.

For daily updates, follow Larry on Twitter.

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post PC aras
thefinisher 9th Apr
you certianly live in a different wprld from i do. The flawed OS is currently the dominant OS and the perfect OS is still have smallest share of the market. unless some thing change in the coming years what you say is baseless. windows maybe junk or whatever but definuaely not irrelevant. The fact that you bothered write about microsoft is contradiction the fact is apple OS is more relelevant to the consumer make than Linux. I love Linux but I do not have my head in the sand happy
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I don't understand this "post-pc era" stuff?
General C# 13th Sep
What is a PC? Personal Computer. Is a tablet not personal? Can it not compute? The same goes for mobile phones. Anyway let's step away from the technical into the blogospheric alternate reality... yes I said BAR, AKA the place where you can find iPhone prototypes. I've spent enough time with my iPad to know that touch interface can be a pain in the ass sometimes. Try creating a spreadsheet with touch. Let's see how far you get before pulling your hair out.

The long and short of it is Microsoft acknowledges the various PC form factors and they're creating an OS that caters to almost all of them. My iPad is useful for some tasks and my "PC" is useful for others. With Windows 8, I get the best of both worlds.
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RE: Microsoft's big task: Juggle PC, post-PC eras
lefleur1987 13th Sep
@General C#
"The long and short of it is Microsoft acknowledges the various PC form factors and they're creating an OS that caters to almost all of them. My iPad is useful for some tasks and my "PC" is useful for others. With Windows 8, I get the best of both worlds."

Very true. I think those transformer laptops are a good idea. Imagine sitting in your study working on a tedious spreadsheet and when you are done you just pull out the screen and go over it while laying on your couch. MS FTW
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RE: Microsoft's big task: Juggle PC, post-PC eras
ozl@... 13th Sep
@lefleur1987 Excellent example! xD
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RE: Microsoft's big task: Juggle PC, post-PC eras
nordyj2001@... 13th Sep
@lefleur1987 I'm looking forward to picking up a Transformer during tax return season!
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RE: Microsoft's big task: Juggle PC, post-PC eras
neonspark 13th Sep
@General C#

post-pc is just a steve jobs term to describe something that never came to happen. we are howerver seeing the post-iphone era with android becoming the dominant standard and we may see the post-ipad era with windows 8 briging the full power of a pc to a touch UI.

when you see post-pc in an aritcle, you can bet it was written by some mac fan hopelessly clinging to the old words of Jobs which in this case will go into history as one of his biggest fiascos.
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Steve Jobs is right from consumer prospective
voska1 13th Sep
@neonspark

Apple is great at marketing to the consumer, that's why they have such great success. So for the average consumer the PC is not needed. In business setting the PC is still the way to go combined with all the other technology.
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RE: Microsoft's big task: Juggle PC, post-PC eras
Michael Alan Goff 13th Sep
PCs will always be around.

Tablets, netbooks, ultrabooks, whatever, are all PCs.
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RE: Microsoft's big task: Juggle PC, post-PC eras
tdogg219 13th Sep
@voska1 - I don't think you're accurate in that the average consumer does not need a PC/MAC/Linux desktop or laptop. There is a certain limited group of people who do very little besides consume and they are the target for touch devices. My 6th grader has papers to write and research to perform and for him a family laptop fits the bill perfectly. Average (non-executive) office employees have to create reports, spreadsheets, and craft e-mails longer than 1-2 sentences.
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Are you serious?
GeoffMichael 13th Sep
@neonspark What rock have you been sleeping under? Post iPhone era? Post iPad era? Do you always make such factless-based statements?

Incidentally, it isn't just users of Apple products that inaccurately keep referring to a post-pc era.
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RE: Microsoft's big task: Juggle PC, post-PC eras
bahamutwing 13th Sep
@neonspark I don't know if it would be post-ipad, iphone era but it's a true statement that they've lost majority of the market in comparison to what they had.

Post-pc isn't just a Steve Jobs term though, I would have to say a lot of smart phone users throw it around as well.

However it's all a moot point because it's pc's that people use to make games, android apps, and millions of other things. In fact the PC was responsible for the creation of the tabs and the Androids and Iphones, so the concept of it being "post-pc" is just silly.
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RE: Microsoft's big task: Juggle PC, post-PC eras
GWCC 13th Sep
@neonspark

A response that I usually reserve for enlightened individuals such as Loverock ... moron!
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So for the average consumer the PC is not needed?
William Farrell 15th Sep
@neonspark
Really? Sales indicate that for the average consumer the tablet is not needed.
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dave95, so what that OEM's pay MS for a license
William Farrell 15th Sep
@neonspark
they have access to free OS's on their PC's yet buy tons of Windows licenses.

Just because they have access to free Android doesn't mean they, or consumers, really want that as a first choice.
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RE: Microsoft's big task: Juggle PC, post-PC eras
dave95. Updated - 13th Sep
@General C#

Post-PC doesn't mean the end of traditional PCs. It just means mobile devices such as the popular iPad (and smart phones too) are becoming more and more capable devices allowing the possibility for consumers to use it as their primary "PC". The traditional PC will always be with us for certain specific tasks, but a device such as the iPad are perfectly suited for everything else that the average consumer does with their PCs. And a whole lot cheaper too than what those Windows Slates with a full license copy of Windows will probably cost.

This is the threat MS is facing now with their cash cow Windows in the consumer market. Why rush out to purchase a new Windows PC when you can buy a cool device like the iPad that can already handle the majority of tasks the average user use his/her PC today for (majority = consumption). HP already saw the threat and exited the consumer market. Add in a wireless keyboard or one of those Logitech ones that makes the iPad look like a laptop and you see the concern.

Microsoft is doing what is expected from a company who's afraid of change. They're protecting their cash cow (Windows licenses) by bundling it onto a form factor that doesn't require full blown Windows to succeed, as the iPad is proving. Allot of the things we do today with computers are done on the web, a full blown desktop is not required for that. They will find a niche just like they've done before with their SlatePC efforts but I predict these will be largely ignore by the wider gen consumer marker looking for light computing on cheaper appliance type devices like the iPad.
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Afraid of Change
rdowdy@... Updated - 13th Sep
@dave95. Dave - you nailed it. MSFT could have taken a leadership position, instead they are working hard at making themselves irrelevant. There is nothing exciting about any MSFT product. No one will be waiting in lines to buy an upgrade of a windows tablet version.
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The iPad is marketing gone mad
Paul-ICC 13th Sep
@dave95. I do love how your argument is entirely based on what Microsoft will 'probably' charge for their OS and a load of hypothetical mumbo jumbo that is just covering for the iPad's short comings. I know 1 person with an iPad, they bought it for the kids to play with.
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RE: Microsoft's big task: Juggle PC, post-PC eras
bahamutwing Updated - 13th Sep
@dave95. I'd like to point out from what I've seen, that all these tabs and pads that the consumers are buying are nowhere around. Again maybe it's just the areas work has taken me, but I take notice and I haven't seen one tab or pad in use while I walked on colleges in AZ, NV, and CA. In fact I've only seen a handful in use about town. My question is where are all these appliances that are 'killing' the market?

And did you call the iPad a "cheaper appliance" ?
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RE: Microsoft's big task: Juggle PC, post-PC eras
Fletchguy 13th Sep
@dave95.
The problem is microsoft will be able to keep prices inline with android which is a bit cheaper then the ipad and the ipad really doesn't do much even for the average user. It has so many limitations and for the cost you can still buy a used android tablet and brand new i5 laptop for ess then the basic ipad 2 giving you ten folds the ability and usefulness while not being chained to an ugly ipad that cost a ton for little functionality. The related fact is the pc is going no where and the fact the writer even attempts to persuade us into thinking pcs are on their last leg just shows a very narrow short view. The pc is going no where and Microsoft knows this but sees the oppurtunity to over take the market with a single os if they can make it actually work.
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EXCITEMENT!! (???)
camcost@... 13th Sep
Excitement is also a key component, and extremely important in this newest Windows launch. If Microsoft fails to garner a good deal of excitement... in the same way Apple did with the launch of the IPad, then it doesn't matter what they've put into their OS, many people will still yawn at it, like I have with their previous launches since XP.

Though I use Windows on a regular basis, I'm not really looking for another Windows OS to be my computer of the future. The OS was not original or new when first introduced, and it still garners the same feelings.
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RE: Microsoft's big task: Juggle PC, post-PC eras
AJ in Nashville 13th Sep
@dave95: Just to be fair, as far as PCs go, Microsoft doesn't make the hardware, just the OS, right? So the onus would be on making Windows scalable across devices and hoping the OEMs do their part in providing the hardware that makes it work seamlessly in the New Tab Order. happy
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RE: Microsoft's big task: Juggle PC, post-PC eras
bluebeard66 13th Sep
Well next week I'm going to go "post-PC". I'm packing up my quad-core, 3.2 GHz, 3TB, triple 1920x1600 monitor PC......and switching to my Android smartphone with 4-inch screen. Because this is the post-PC world, and I can access the internet (oops...it's a "cloud" now, isn't it?) from my smartphone - coz that's all that matters now...no?

Slightly later next week, I'll be looking forward to a POST-STUPIDITY society, where I don't have to read nonsense about how the PC is so dead.

What is the point here? Is Microsoft supposedly in trouble because new gadgets have appeared on the market? Oh no...square pegs, round holes...and the "obvious" conclusion that the PC is doomed.

Well......as I remember, Microsoft just about managed to survive the arrival of the WWW back in the 90's. So I wonder if maybe they can't cobble together an evolution of their wares and continue doing what they do best...???
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RE: Microsoft's big task: Juggle PC, post-PC eras
dave95. Updated - 13th Sep
@AJ in Nashville

Two things. Those same OEM's are currently releasing Android/Honeycomb tablets without paying a full OS tax (license fee) first. OEMs have to pay for Windows 8 license for each device while at the same time trying to keep it at a competitive cost against Android/Honeycomb and the popular iPad. May be a tall order depending on what MS decides to charge for Windows 8.

These are the same OEMs that for over a decade brought us the failed Tablet PCs/Slates/UMPC/Origami/HP Slate.....not exactly ringing endorsement for that strategy of waiting on OEMs.
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The strength of a gorilla and the size of a mouse
Robert Hahn 13th Sep
With Windows 8, I get the best of both worlds.Maybe, but that sure sounds like PR-speak. "With Peterbilt I get long-haul cargo capacity. With the Prius I get fantastic gas mileage. With Pontiac I get the best of both worlds." Sounds good, but it's canal water.

Engineers would be much happier people if there were no such thing as the "tradeoff." But the world is not so kind. Too often, products that are engineered too closely to the center of a tradeoff so that they can be used at either extreme end up seeming mediocre in almost all use cases, and also end up losing to products that are optimized for one segment or the other.

This is the risk that Microsoft is taking by trying to have "Windows everywhere." It might work. But if it doesn't, it will be too late for Microsoft to do anything except ride desktops and laptops into the sunset.
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RE: Microsoft's big task: Juggle PC, post-PC eras
Turd Furgeson 13th Sep
@Robert Hahn
Your straw man argument is nice but not correct. Toyota vs Peterbuilt you might as well be talking toasters vs dish washers.
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Problem with trying to do everything...
blarman_z 14th Sep
...is that you become good at nothing.

@Robert Hahn "This is the risk that Microsoft is taking by trying to have "Windows everywhere." It might work. But if it doesn't, it will be too late for Microsoft to do anything except ride desktops and laptops into the sunset. "

Spot on. Microsoft has been trying to be everything to everyone for years, and Windows 8 is just the exclamation mark on that. The problem - as their engineers are no doubt telling them yet getting ignored - is that the USE of mobile devices vs PC's is so totally different as to put them in different (ie non-competing) classes of devices. Mobile devices help people consume content much more efficiently (in most cases) than PC's due to size, portability, etc. PC's - on the other hand - are the method for content _creation_.

Another real problem is power usage: you can disparage the Android and iPhone interfaces, but they kick Microsoft's behind on power usage, and these have to be accounted for on a very low level. I have serious doubts that Microsoft is going to be able to successfully address power architecture with a dual-platform OS.

A third serious issue is just the sheer size of their code base: there is no way they are going to fit Windows 8 on a portable device without either removing so much from the OS that nothing will run (and making programming a real pain) - or redoing the OS so you have to reprogram everything anyway. All said and done - programmers better expect to re-write their applications for Windows 8.

Microsoft really just needs to concentrate and put out one OS for the desktop and another for the mobile devices.
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Doom an Gloomers
William Farrell 15th Sep
@Turd Furgeson
Some people just wish doom and gloom on MS for no other reason then that's what they want.

Unfortunatelly, it clouds their perception so it always ends up "looking bad" for MS to them.

It happens.
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RE: Microsoft's big task: Juggle PC, post-PC eras
bvonr@... 13th Sep
@General C# +1
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RE: Microsoft's big task: Juggle PC, post-PC eras
artful@... 13th Sep
@General C# :
I agree completely with this comment. I use PCs to write long text articles, to create digital art, to develop spreadsheets, none of which are practical on "mobile devices", read absurdly small computers. Yes, I have an I-Phone, and a netbook. But "post-PC"?? Not yet I think. We still have a long ways to go for that . . . beam me up Scotty . . .
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RE: Microsoft's big task: Juggle PC, post-PC eras
3weekend 13th Sep
Right on! My sentiments exactly. The reports of Windows' demise continue to be wildly premature. ingrid
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RE: Microsoft's big task: Juggle PC, post-PC eras
rengek 13th Sep
@General C#
I really believe the term should be post desktop and not post pc. Tablets like the ones they demo today on windows 8 are PCs in every sense of the word and can load the full OS as the desktop counterpart. The form is the only difference. You don't call a laptop a desktop but its still a PC.
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I agree with you.
mac021 13th Sep
@General C#
Well said.
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Agreed, what post-pc era?
deepee912 14th Sep
Those of us who have real work to do and those of us who create content rather than just consume still use personal computers!
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PC's will be around to stay for a long time
busta_nut 13th Sep
What do you sync your smart phone with? Can you run the latest games from your smartphone, can you run business and accounting applications. Having a phone can be usful for some roaming applications like email and social apps, but it still has its limits. Windows 8 is pretty much windows 7 with touch technology added and perhaps a couple of additional gimiks. Microsoft are simply allowing their OS to be run on more diverse platforms from desktop to handheld device, it's not designed to make the desktop pc obsolete. The 'post-pc' era is still quite a way away yet.
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RE: Microsoft's big task: Juggle PC, post-PC eras
daniejam10 13th Sep
@busta_nut

I forgot you had access to the windows 8 source code....
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You don't need the source code to make the prediction
baggins_z 13th Sep
you just need experience combined with intelligence. MS has always been a "one size fits all" company when it comes to their operating system.
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RE: Microsoft's big task: Juggle PC, post-PC eras
busta_nut 13th Sep
@daniejam10

It's called windows 8 beta - you don't need access to source code. Most new implementations of windows are based on previous versions.
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RE: Microsoft's big task: Juggle PC, post-PC eras
Turd Furgeson 13th Sep
@baggins_z
Huh?? Microsoft's OS fits as many (if not more) different hardware types as any other OS and it comes in multiple versions.
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RE: Microsoft's big task: Juggle PC, post-PC eras
owlnet 13th Sep
Only idiots will talk about 'post-pc era'.

The recent tecnological advances in processors/ memory has made possible thin form factors like tablets and phones. And Microsoft naturally has to have an OS which could make use of that form factor fully. I don't know if its a hedge, PC/Laptops are forever as long as people do work using their 'computers'
Phones/tablets are handy devices for small tasks

If Windows 8 does what the rumor says it will, then the iPAD and Android tablets are irrelevent.
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Irrelevant? Hmmm.....
rhonin 13th Sep
@owlnet
How many of us own 2 pc's or have a work / personal pc?
I have a gaming pc, a personal pc and a work pc.

Will Win8 make Android and iOS dead from a tablet perspective?
Don't think so. Depending on my usage requirements, and other requirements, these will likely be around for quite a while.

happy
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RE: Microsoft's big task: Juggle PC, post-PC eras
blazing_smiley_face 13th Sep
Post-pc era? some people just follow the nonesense they hear from steve jobs......it's amazing how they follow so blindly.

First off when gates stood up on stage when unveiling the new form PC factor and he showed one that had no keyboard, no mouse he called it a PC, not another device, a PC which he believed will be very much everywhere in the future and he was right. now apple comes about and call it tablet and say it's not a pc and everyone seems to be following suit.....get it together man.

I remember when apple used to run their ads that they paint the PC as something so problem prone and slow and not "hip", etc. then steve jobs sat on All Things D stage and declared the Mac and iphone as a PC (say what? yes, i'm sure you watched that ep), why he did this? becaues Microsoft's new ad campaign at the time seemed to have captured a lot of peoples hearts...."I'M A PC" which caused them to stand against the "I'm a mac, i'm a pc" ads by apple. no wonder apple stopped airing them.

get it together man, it's all PCs, it's different form factors but it's a definite Personal Computer (PC). If anything this IS the opposite of Post-PC, this is actually more like a Pro-PC era as a tablet, slate, mobile phone is way more personal that a desktop sitting in the home or notebook. at least try to remember what a Personal Computer means.

now my question to you is this, if this era is AFTER the significance of the PC, then what is this new era called? i'm sure "post-pc" can't be the name, it must have a name for itself....so what is that name? don't tell me that because steve jobs didn't give it a name then it doesn't have one.

Also, if the significance of the Personal Computer is dead, then i'm sure we should all see a lot of "Community Computers" around seeing that it's not Personal anymore according to you, steve jobs and a number of other people.

again my stance is that, this era is more like the epitome of Personal Computing as the devices we use today or way more personal than they were a decade ago.


Microsoft showed off tablets to the world and called it a PC, so why is it years after people are going to follow someone who calls that same form-factor Microsoft showed off, and called it a post-PC era device? come on, lets get it together.
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RE: Microsoft's big task: Juggle PC, post-PC eras
lefleur1987 13th Sep
@blazing_smiley_face
+1. plus the ipad is just a big iTouch and Galaxy tab = Galaxy SII- can't do anything with the damn things except browse the Internet on a smaller screen that you have to physically support
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RE: Microsoft's big task: Juggle PC, post-PC eras
bahamutwing 13th Sep
@lefleur1987 Amen. Fact was I noticed this article on my Galaxy S, but went over to my desktop so I could sit in my comfortable computer chair and read on my wide screen monitor, and use my palm supported keyboard.
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RE: Microsoft's big task: Juggle PC, post-PC eras
neonspark 13th Sep
there is no such thing as the post-pc era. we are living in the post apple era though. with apple having lost the mobile race to android and with windows 8 about to do the same thing: win by numbers, we are not seeing a post-pc era as much as we are seeing a pc-transformation era. pcs will become tablets, phone, watches, tvs, game consoles, etc. the computer started as something that took several rooms and used megawatts. today is all over in different forms. this is part of the same evolution.

what windows8 brings which apple failed to envision is the fusion of the best of both worlds: the unchallenged and undiputed need for agile productivity mouse/keyboard software with the protability of mobile sofware. All in one OS. windows 8 is the only platform in the history of mankind that can make this happen since they already own the productivity market and extending the existing domain of the PC down to mobile devices is far easier than it is for apple/google to duplicate the triving and gargantuan PC ecosystem. it is a mere matter of numbers. windows has over a billion users. makes the tens of milliosn of ipads and iphone sold look like kids play in comparison.

the post-apple world begins with windows 8.
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RE: Microsoft's big task: Juggle PC, post-PC eras
Accompagnatrici 13th Sep
PC = a war machine that can be used by anyone on any battlefield. Accompagnagtrici
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The PC is never going away ..
thx-1138_@... 13th Sep
The PC we have come to rely on in our day to day lives will simply evolve and become the streamlined device it was destined to become.

We all know how the real-estate for PC form factors is rapidly decreasing in size as OEM's develop ever more amazingly sophisticated systems for fitting more advanced technologies into ever smaller devices.

The iPad is testament to all those points and to the possibilities. But just as Ford Motor Corporation was at the start of the automobile revolution, so will Apple be in regards to mobile computing. They are certainly pioneers - but, I sincerely believe, they are far from the be all and end all many make them out to be.

"The PC is dead .. long live the PC."

(.. watch this space.)
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Post-PC = Post-Windows
ldo17 13th Sep
When people say "PC", I think they implicitly mean "Windows PC", which means a device defined, not just by the capabilities of Microsoft Windows, but also by its limitations.

Those limitations were illustrated by Bill Gates' failed attempt to popularize tablet PCs running Windows. And of course the eclipsing of Microsoft's Windows Phone/Mobile efforts by Android.

Now we have entire new categories of ultramobile devices, sporting new UI paradigms and built on new OS/framework stacks. The long-running steady march of Microsoft Windows wanting ever-greater resource requirements as provided by the traditional desktop PC has led it into a dead-end, unable to adapt to a new era of small, power-miserly, mobile-centric devices. Now Microsoft wants a piece of the new action, but it cannot do that without endangering its existing empire. It can't have both.

That's what's known as a "disruptive technology".
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RE: Microsoft's big task: Juggle PC, post-PC eras
tdogg219 13th Sep
@ldo17 - Pretty sure that all OSs as they mature and get more features start demanding more resources. I don't think that OSx would run with the same requirements as need to run an earlier version (processor architectural differences notwithstanding). It also seems to me that Ubuntu requires more resources than did it's predecessors. New Android phones are shipping with more powerful processors and more RAM than what I used to run Windows XP on and many would agree that it uses every bit of it.

Another prime example of this is seen with FireFox. It started out as a sleek, fast, resource non-intensive browser. As it added more functionality and features, it has turned into bloatware every bit the equal of Internet Explorer... the browser which it was created to compete with based on poor performance and resource utilization!

As things evolve and improve, they require more resources almost without fail. This holds true beyond the IT world as well. I don't care one way or the other, but most of your argument can be used for nearly any piece of technology or other good produced anywhere.
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RE: Microsoft's big task: Juggle PC, post-PC eras
JustCallMeBC Updated - 13th Sep
The average user only wants to turn on the computer and get things done, and could care less (even if he/she understood) about how it gets done.

My opinion, for what it's worth, is that Microsoft itself inadvertently created the "post-PC" mindset by gumming up and slowing down any real progress on the PC front for a very long while via its heavy handed monopolistic bad behavior over the years, and it's lack of any real innovating. It's 2011 and at the PC end, we're still waiting for things to start up so we can get to work, and all the advancements in hardware speed and storage capacity over the years has been matched or bettered by ever bloating and sluggish software apps, led by Microsoft. Also, regardless of claims of security improvements, every year the risk of infection and security breaches not only go up, but the difficulty, time and expense in dealing with them also go up (if your 64-bit Win7 PC gets a serious infection, consider it totaled, and plan on doing a disk wipe and reinstalling everything from scratch after getting your files off it.)

If you look at the hardware specs of common software from a decade ago and compare that to the hardware that's now available, you should notice that current hardware should let people run general purpose software -- word processors, spreadsheets, web browsers, multimedia, email, IM's, and such -- the way handheld game consoles run games. Software coding -- thanks again to Microsoft and its software tools and libraries -- has been grossly inefficient, and basically in complete violation of the early spirit of programmers who were proud of getting the most done with the littlest amount of code -- but which modern day virus writer have adopted to unfortunately high effect.

The success of Google and Apple represent clever end-arounds of Microsofts's bloated hegemony on the desktop computer side by taking advantage of faster and faster Internet & cell phone networks, and cheaper and cheaper storage, which then allowed both Google and especially Apple to encroach on Microsoft's ever more weakly defended desktop market (if you live in a student-heavy area, the next time you're in a Starbucks or such, check out the ratio of Mac notebooks and iPads to that of Windows-based systems.)

More and more once desktop-only apps are being moved online, greatly alleviating what had been a growing headache of endless patches, updates and compatibility/security issues. Which also has the effect of marginalizing what OS a user's computing device uses. We're fast approaching the point that when a user clicks or taps on a screen icon, there is no way of telling how much of what happens afterwards occurs on the device and how much on the Internet, or even what OS is being used on the device, and the typical user, as I mentioned at the beginning, could care less as long as it gets done.
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RE: Microsoft's big task: Juggle PC, post-PC eras
rshol 13th Sep
But can I choose to never see that start screen if i wish? I will not be using full screen apps on a desktop/laptop. Full screen is so 1991.
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RE: Microsoft's big task: Juggle PC, post-PC eras
bitcrazed 13th Sep
@rshol Yes, you can choose to boot to the desktop if you want. Watch the BUILD keynote (or follow the liveblog) this morning and learn more.
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post PC aras
thefinisher 9th Apr
you certianly live in a different wprld from i do. The flawed OS is currently the dominant OS and the perfect OS is still have smallest share of the market. unless some thing change in the coming years what you say is baseless. windows maybe junk or whatever but definuaely not irrelevant. The fact that you bothered write about microsoft is contradiction the fact is apple OS is more relelevant to the consumer make than Linux. I love Linux but I do not have my head in the sand happy

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