Faster update cycles mean PC apps become expensive

Ah, for the good old days of slow hardware upgrades. It used to be that one could buy a computer system and use it for years, possibly even a decade. The software would be upgraded, but the hardware would last. One could run a business knowing the future of its IT (hardware and software) was predictable.

Today we have faster cycles for hardware upgrades. Cell phones, tablets, and some PCs (Apple) are updated in a matter of months, not decades. The causes are multiple: competition (especially among phone vendors), changes in technology, and a form of planned obsolescence (Apple) that sees existing customers buying new versions.

I expect that these faster cycles will move to the PC realm.

The change in the life span of PC hardware will affect consumers and businesses, with the greater impact on businesses. I expect individual consumers to move away from PCs and switch to phones, tablets, game consoles, and internet TV appliances.

Businesses have a challenge ahead. Corporate users typically don't want PCs; they want computing power. Specifically, they want computing power with a user interface that is consistent over time. (When a new version of Windows is introduced to a corporate environment, one of the first actions is to configure the user interface to look like the old version. The inability of Windows 8 to emulate Windows 7 exactly is probably the cause for corporate discomfort with it.)

But the challenge to business goes beyond the user interface. Corporations want stable computing platforms to hold their applications. They want to build a system (or buy one) and use it for a long time. Switching from one vendor's system to another's is an expensive proposition, and corporations amortize the conversion cost over a long life. A new system, or even a new version of a system, can impose changes to the user interface, interfaces to other systems, and interactions with the operating system and drivers. All of these changes are part of the cost of implementation.

In the corporation's mind, the fewer conversions, the better.

That philosophy is colliding with the faster pace of hardware. Apple is not alone in its rapid release of hardware and operating systems; Microsoft is releasing new versions of Windows at a rate much faster than the ten-year gap between Windows XP and Windows 7. (I'm ignoring Windows Vista.)

To adapt to the faster change, I expect corporations to shift from the PC platform to technologies that allow it to retain longer lifespans: virtual PCs and cloud computing. Virtual PCs are the easier change, allowing applications to be shifted directly onto the new platform. With remote access, a (fast-changing) real PC can access the (slow changing) "get the work done" virtual PC. In this case, virtualization and remote access act as a shock absorber for the change in technology.

Cloud computing offers a more efficient platform, but only after re-designing the application. The large monolithic PC applications must split into multiple services coordinated by (relatively) simple applications running on tablets and phones. In this case, the use of small, simple components on multiple platforms (server and tablet/phone) act as the buffer to changes in technology.

The PC platform will see faster update cycles and shorter life spans. Applications on this platform will be subject to more changes. A company's customer base will use more platforms, driving up the cost of development, testing, and support.

Moving to virtual PCs or to the cloud is a way of avoiding that increase in costs.

For PCs, small may be the new big thing

PCs have had the same size and shape (roughly) for the past thirty years. While we have seen improvements to processors (faster), memory (more), video adapters (faster and more memory), hard disks (bigger), and communication ports (faster, more, and simpler), the general design of a PC has been stagnant. The color may have changed from IBM's beige to Compaq's brown, to Dell's white, and to HP's black-and-silver, but the PC box has remained... a box.

In the early PC days, the large, spacious box with its expansion slots made sense. In the early days, PCs needed expansion and customization. The "base" PC was not enough for corporate work. When we bought a PC, we added video cards, memory cards, serial and parallel port cards, terminal emulator cards, and network cards. We even added cards with real-time clocks. It was necessary to open the PC and add these cards.

Over the years, more and more "extra" features became "standard". The IBM PC AT came with a built-in real-time clock, which eliminated one card. Memory increased. Hard drives became larger and faster. The serial ports and parallel ports were replaced by USB ports. Today's PC has enough memory, a capable video card, a big enough hard disk, a network interface, and ample USB ports. (Apple computers have slightly different communication options, but enough.)

The one constant in the thirty years of change has been the size of the PC. The original IBM PC was about the size of today's tower PC. PCs still have the card slots and drive bays for expansion, although few corporate users need such things.

That's about to change. PCs will shrink from their current size to one of two smaller sizes: small and nothing. The small PCs will be the size of the Apple Mini: a 4-inch by 4-inch box with ports and no expansion capabilities. The "nothing" size PCs will be virtual machines, existing only in larger computers. (Let's focus on the "small" size. We can discuss virtual PCs another time.)

The small PCs have all the features of a real PC: processor, memory, storage, video, and communications. They may have some compromises, with perhaps not the fastest processors and the most capable video cards, but they are good enough. They can run Windows or Linux, and the Apple Mini Mac runs MacOS, of course. All you need is a display, a keyboard, and a network connection. (These small-form PCs often have wire network interfaces and not wireless.)

I suppose that we can give credit to Apple for the change. Apple's Mini Mac showed that there was a steady demand for smaller, non-PC-shaped PCs. Intel has their "Next Unit of Computing" or NUC device, a small 4-inch by 4-inch PC with communication ports.

Other manufacturers had built small PCs prior to Apple's Mini Mac (the Shuttle PC is a notable pioneer) but received little notice.

The Arduino, the Raspberry Pi, and the Beaglebone and also small-form devices, designed mainly for tinkerers. I expect little interest from the corporate market in these devices.

But I do expect interest in the smaller "professional" units from Apple and Intel. I also expect to see units from other manufacturers like Lenova, Asus, HP, and Dell.

Small will be the new big thing.

The death of PC brands

We're about to see the death of PC brands.

Let's be honest, do we really care about the brand of PC? Does it matter if the box is made by HP or Dell, or Asus? We merely want a box to perform computations.

Some people are sensitive to brands. Some are loyal to specific companies, but most of the sensitive-to-brand people are anti-loyal. That is, they pick certain brands of PCs and avoid them. You can identify them by their call: "I will never use a brand ABC PC again." Most likely they had a bad experience with the specific brand at some point in the past.

When choosing to buy a PC, brand, if considered at all, is usually a proxy for quality. If someone has good experiences with a specific brand, they will continue to buy that brand. If they have poor experiences, they will choose other brands.

People can make decisions along these lines because PCs are commodities. Each PC brand (except Apple equipment, which is the exception) is virtually identical. They all run Windows. They all have processors and memory to run Windows and the popular applications. I suspect that when people select a PC, they use the following criteria:

1. Will it run my software (present and future software)?
2. Is it a good value (reliable, economical)?
3. Do I like the color, size, and shape?

I think that these have always been the criteria for selecting computing equipment. But in the early PC days, there was more thought given to the first question.


With today's commodity PCs, the first question is rarely considered. It is assumed that the PC will run the desired software. A few folks with specific processing needs may be sensitive to memory and disk space, and certainly anyone provisioning a server room will ask lots of questions. But for the average consumer (and the average end-user in corporate environments) the average PC will do the job.


In contrast, the early days of PCs saw great variations in hardware. Prior to the IBM PC, each manufacturer had their own architecture and their own software base. An Apple II used a 6502 processor, was able to display color and graphics, and ran Apple DOS. A Radio Shack TRS-80 used a Z-80 (or a 68000), displayed black-and-white text and graphics, and ran TRS-DOS (or Xenix). A Commodore PET used a 6502, displayed black-and-white text and text-based graphics, and ran Microsoft BASIC (called "Commodore BASIC").


The differences between computer brands were significant. Some brands offered cassette storage, others disk. Some offered serial ports, others parallel ports, and yet others none. The keyboards varied from vendor to vendor (and even model to model).


When the hardware varied, committing to a brand committed you to a lot of other capabilities.

Things began to change when IBM introduced the PC. Actually, it was not the introduction of the IBM PC that changed the market, but the IBM PC clones. When IBM introduced their PC, it was another offering from another vendor with specific capabilities.

It was only the PC clones that made PCs commodities. Once vendors began cloning the PC design, variation between brands dropped. For a while, there was variation in included equipment and portability. (Compaq made its success with portable PC clones.)

And apparently once the consumers in the market decide that hardware is a commodity, they are loathe to return to vendor-specific equipment. IBM tried to introduce vendor-specific equipment with the PS/2, but the special features of the PS/2 were quickly adopted by other manufacturers in their traditional designs. The PS/2 keyboard and mouse connectors were adopted as standard, but the MicroChannel bus was not.

Fast-forward to today, with the rise of smartphones and tablets. Apple has it's offerings of the iPhone, iPod, and iPad. Google has pushed Android on a number of branded devices. Microsoft is pushing Windows 8 on devices, but the tablets will be brand-less; like the iPhone and iPad, the Windows 8 tablets will simply say "Microsoft". The hardware brand has been absorbed into the software, except for Android.


I expect that the brandlessness of hardware will spill over into the desktop PC world. It already has for Apple desktop devices. Full-size desktop PCs are commoditized enough, are bland enough, that the manufacturer makes no difference. (Again, this is for the average user. Users with specific needs will be conscious of the brand.) Full-size desktop PCs will lose their brand identity. Small-format desktop PCs, which can be as small as an Altoids tin or even a pack of gum, will lose their brand identity too, or perhaps never gain one to start.


The questions for selecting computing equipment will remain:

1. Will it run my software?
2. Is it a good value?
3. Do I like the color, size, and shape?

But the answer will be one of Apple, Microsoft, or Google.