But recently, processing power has been trumped by other concerns — power consumption and heat dissipation have taken center stage.
More specifically, Haswell, the company’s latest chip architecture, was designed with mobility in mind. Future hybrid tablets (like Microsoft’s Surface Pro) and Ultrabook laptops with Haswell inside should weigh less while boasting better battery life.
Thus, Haswell-powered hybrid tablets should be more competitive with traditional tablets like Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s iPad. Of course, if mobile devices were no threat to traditional PCs, why would Intel even bother?
Valve is making its own console
Many investors probably aren’t aware of Valve — it isn’t a publicly traded company. But most gamers are, and that’s a significant group when it comes to the PC market. In aggregate, PC gamers tend to spend more on their machines than any other group of buyers, save perhaps graphic designers.
In addition to making some of its own games, Valve runs a virtual PC game store called Steam — think iTunes but for PC games. And as dominant as iTunes is for music, Steam is equally dominant when it comes to PC games, with an estimated 50-70% of the digital market.
But, despite its dominance of PC game sales, Valve is moving on: the company is currently working on a console — The Steam Box. Although it will feature PC hardware, Steam Box will compete against Sony’s PlayStation and Microsoft’s Xbox.
If Valve wasn’t concerned about the health of the PC market, why would it be designing a console?
Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) and Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) have shifted their focus to mobile
On the web front, both Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) and Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) have shifted their focus — away from traditional PCs and towards mobile devices.
Facebook’s founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg called his company a “mobile company” last year, one that is focused more on the Facebook mobile app than the desktop website. Evidence of that can be seen in Facebook’s recent updates.
The Facebook mobile app is now more featured than the website; both chat heads and stickers aren’t available on the desktop side, while Facebook Home was a completely mobile-focused endeavor.
Instragam, a company Facebook bought ahead of its IPO, started as a mobile app and predominantly remains one.
Yahoo’s new CEO Marissa Mayer has taken her company in a similar direction. In an interview earlier this year, she said she hopes to make Yahoo! the go-to destination for everything people do on their smart phones.
Under Mayer, Yahoo! has been buying startups like crazy — mobile app startups, to be more specific. Recently, Yahoo! bought Loki Studios (a mobile game developer) and before that, Astrid, a mobile productivity app.
Yahoo! and Facebook are just two consumer-focused websites, but they are two of the biggest. Both believe the future lies with mobile devices — not traditional PCs.
The PC is dying
Whether one considers it a death, or just a change in form factor, the traditional PC paradigm is going away. It won’t happen overnight, but it might just happen faster than people think.
Although investors and consumers may be skeptical, PC companies are clearly shifting their strategies – a necessary reaction, if they are to survive.
The article Yes, the PC Is Dying originally appeared on Fool.com and is written by Salvatore “Sam” Mattera.
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