The rumors of the death of desktop are greatly exaggerated.
Why I believe that the desktop PC will not die for a very long time
With the success of mobile devices and the convenience of tablet computers, a lot of people in the industry have been predicting the "death" of the desktop PC. I, on the other hand, do not believe that this is really happening. Here's why:
Mobile devices
It cannot be denied that mobile devices, specifically devices like the iPhone and all the Android phones, as well as tablet computers have been very successful in the last few years.
I think much of the success is attributable to the convenience of these devices. If I take myself as an example: it is much more convenient to take my tablet and sit on the couch or outside in the garden using the tablet to check mails, news, do some facebooking and tweeting etc etc, than it is to go and sit in front of my desktop computer. It is also much more convenient to read articles from wikipedia or a good ebook in bed using the tablet than it would be to use my laptop computer.
But to me, the mobile devices only fill the convenience gap. In my opinion there is also the need to be productive with one's computers, and I think that mobile devices only partially answers the productivity requirement.
Productivity
Whilst there probably is a portion of the people in the world who will insist that facebooking and answering emails amounts to seriously productive work, for me these fall in a nuisance category. They are things that I sometimes have to do, but I do not consider them central to my productivity.
Being an engineer and software developer, productivity for me means much more than social interaction with other people on a mobile device. I believe that if people reflect upon this, they will probably come to the same conclusion.
in my work I am required to write code, develop CAD models, document systems and specifications, do detail testing of systems and communicate with other people.
I think the desktop is ultimately much better suited towards productive work than mobile devices. Here's why:
Ergonomics
Mobile devices are designed to be mobile. Therefor they have small screens and thanks to the touchscreen they have a set of inputs consisting of gestures that are suited towards mobile usage. But the problem is that many if not all seriously productive tools simply just do not work well on mobile devices.
If you use CAD tools like Solidworks or Altium Designer, it is almost unthinkable that you will be able to harness to power of those tools using simple swipe actions or gestures. The desktop with its keyboard and mouse might be considered primitive compared to mobile touchscreens, but believe me nothing beats them when it comes to using power tools like Solidworks or Altium Designer.
Not to even mention the screen size. There is simply no way that you can achieve the same level of productivity of a small mobile screen.
Anybody that has ever tried to make a simple spreadsheet on a tablet, simply must agree with me. The ease with which spreadsheets can be made on a desktop machine simply has no equivalent in the mobile world.
Performance
Right now, desktop computers still outperform mobile computers by quite a margin. They are faster, have more memory, larger diskspace and the provide much better graphics performance. When you are looking to be productive, these are things that count.
Being and engineer, number crunching obviously come into play somewhere during my work. Mobile computing simply just do not have a patch on what desktop can do for me.
Better multitasking
Mobile operating systems, have partially due to their performance constraints and partially due to their screen sizes, very limited multitasking abilities. Since the days of Windows 95 we have become used to being able to do several things at once on the same computer.
Personally I find it nearly impossible for instance to enter a table and draw a graph in a speadsheet, and then to use that graph in a document that I type on the tablet. I know people will say that it can be done, but I maintain that it is nowhere nearly as simple as on a desktop computer.
Conclusion
In conclusion I would have to say that it depends on what you want to do when you want to decide what to use.
It appears that for the consumption of information, media or services, a mobile device is quite adequate, but for the production of information, media or services, there is simply no replacement for the desktop at the moment.
I think there is a percentage of people who previously used desktop devices, but since they are predominantly consumers of information, media or services, a mobile device will suit them better. So there might be a re-adjustment in the ratio of desktops to mobile devices, but I do not think the desktop devices will dissappear because there will always be the need to produce the info, media and services.
As I once heard someone say: "it is hard to be creative on a 7 inch screen!".
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