Recently on NPR I heard that PC sales have hit a record low.  With the growing touch screen market, even Windows is focusing their innovation and development on the tablet market and with operating systems like the recently updated Windows 8.  Bringing together the best of both worlds is the “convertible” market, where your “laptop” is a tablet with docking keyboard and handwriting-to-text capabilities.

Solid state mobile technology, combined with the ease of touch screen and tablet technology can now easily be considered disruptive to the PC market. Consumers who might have formerly purchased PCs and laptops are saving for mobile phones or jumping to tablets, skipping buying laptops or computers altogether.

So where does this leave the commercial world?

You can be sure that there will still be a select market of people who need laptops for “heavy lifting.”  But as more and more graphic and processor capability becomes possible on everyday phones and tablets, we will see more convertibles and fewer laptops.  The desktop computer has practically been phased out altogether in the mix of laptops with docking stations and flat-screen monitors.

Now would be the time to start keeping an eye out for how critical programs and documents might need to migrate to a mobile. Considering I can get HDMI from my Android tablet? When our computer was down during our last power outage we didn’t miss a beat; we connected it to our projector and used it for Netflix instead of sitting in the dark.

Kaye