Is Smartphone Killing the PC?

There has been much talk over the years of the demise of the PC in favor of the smartphone. Smartphone aficionados summarize the impact as: "Basically, this thing is my computer." But how realistic is this? Is the PC dying?

Is the smartphone killing the PC? Let’s take a look at what the experts are saying. In terms of growth; smartphone estimates are impressive. Frost & Sullivan, a prominent ICT analyst firm, recently estimated that in 2010 nearly 1.3 billion mobile phones will ship globally and 250 million of them will be smartphones. But PC sales also keep on booming. Computer supplier Intel reported last month that their second quarter was its best ever, boosted by strong PC sales, and analyst group Gartner predicts computer sales will rise 22% this year. What about PC sales next year and the year after? Here are some projections of smartphone and PC shipments from IDC:

So is it death for the PC? Not really, with projections of about 140 million PC sales annually for the next five years. But smartphones are becoming very transformative with powerful new capabilities. "We've been talking about (smartphones overtaking the PC) for 10 years, but what's new is that component costs have come down, the ecosystem of services has become more mature, and these devices are supporting a wider variety of content now than ever before," said Susan Kevorkian, mobile media and entertainment program director at IDC. In other words, smartphones as a function of computing power and capability have become cheaper, more functional and offer more bang for the buck than devices like the PC and netbook. And high function but low-end smartphones are now becoming widely available. From a mobility perspective, there is more capability in using a smartphone when mobile than what the PC can do. There are certain business applications that will continue to work best on the PC but there are now mobile applications that can work better on devices such as the smartphone.

"It's not just about the device anymore but the service that comes with the gadget” said Dmitriy Molchanov, consumer electronics analyst at Yankee Group. The applications that can reside on the smartphone are impressive. A prime example is Apple’s App Store that offers over 100,000 applications created by third parties. The challenge, analysts say, will be for application storefronts- Apple included- to make it easier for customers to find the software they want and to continue to lure developers who feel they are getting paid enough for their work.

In our humble opinion, the smartphone is not killing the PC. What is changing, though, for business is the power and transformation of the smartphone into a powerful voice and data communication tool. The good news is that hereiam™ adds value to the smartphone cost effectively when doing business with integrated communication tools.