It is finally happening. Sure tablets outselling notebooks was foretold many seasons ago, but few expected this to happen this early. But now research firm IDC believes we are about to witness a highly remarkable change.
Tablet devices will finally outpace notebooks and laptops sales this year.
And this is no mean feat when you consider the numbers and statistics — tablet shipments are poised to grow by 58.7 percent this year to 229.3 million units, compared to 144.5 million units that moved in 2012. This is as remarkable a shift as any in the computing industry.
In fact, the entire PC market (and this include portables and desktops) will be overtaken by the slates in 2015, according to the research firm.
According to Ryan Reith, the program manager for IDC’s Mobility Trackers:
“What started as a sign of tough economic times has quickly shifted to a change in the global computing paradigm with mobile being the primary benefactor.
Tablets surpassing portables in 2013, and total PCs in 2015, marks a significant change in consumer attitudes about compute devices and the applications and ecosystems that power them.”
Change in global computing paradigm indeed.
What this means for most big players is that they will need to get their act together soon. Not all will survive this shift, and there are already talks that smaller PC vendors and hardware makers could soon find themselves in trouble waters if this trend continues.
Microsoft, for its part, left it till the very end — but with Windows 8, Surface tablets, and various partners on board for its tablet platform, Redmond is at least on the right track, and can only go up from here. A lot will depend on what Windows 8.1 and Windows RT 8.1 brings to the table.
