A look to a Human Development

Industry

     Since the mankind learned to calculate, calculation becomes the part of day to day life. As the race evolved, the need of ease in calculation increased which resulted in calculation tools like Abacus, calculation sign language on stones came in to existence. Hence the civilization started the modern computing. The journey of ancient computing to modern computer is the byproduct of the need of computing.

     Who invented the computer? Which company started modern PCs industry? Answer is, “No One”! Yes. The need of development of calculation tools ultimately lead to development of computer. In around 1820s an English mathematician build world’s first calculating machine and the race of machine calculators began.  The roots of modern computing were started with David Packard and Bill Hewlett from Palo Alto in the year 1939 the journey continue with milestones of development of ENIAC by John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert in 1942, HP’s first slide rule calculator(1972) to modern tablets (2011) (Computer History Museum, 2011).

     Today the PCs industry spreaded in almost every continent, every country of the world, sharing market segment includes desktop pcs, laptops, netbooks and tablets. The PCs industry declined in 2009 by 10.6% but expected to grow significantly by 2014 from 2009 showing compound annual growth rate of 10.3% (Global PCs, Datamonitor, 2010).

     Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Compaq are considered to be pioneered companies in PCs industry. Most of the PCs industry now acquired by Mobile PCs (laptops and netbooks) capturing 54.3 % of total world market and Desktop PCs with 45.7 % (PCs in Asia-Pacific, Datamonitor, 2010). But still in Asia-Pacific region where computers available for about US $ 200 or less, attract more consumers to buy computers for home use. This is because of lower purchasing power of consumers in South-East Asia region and they are not concerned about using licensed softwares. However nowadays consumers are lean to purchase Mobile PCs because of warranty and support provided by PC manufacturers and offering of various software bundles.

     USA is world’s largest PC market followed by Europe and Asia-Pacific. Consumption of Mobile PCs supposed to be more in industrialized countries, Mobile Pcs gained 56.5 % in total selling of PCs in the year 2010 (Almanac Inc., 2011).

     Expansion of PCs industry is in the alternative proportion of size of the PCs! Means PC market is growing where as size of PCs shrinking. Technological revolution has transformed laptops and netbooks into tablet form. Tablet war has forced even non PC manufacture companies in to the race, for instance Research in Motion. A tablet is a lightweight, easy to carry, multipurpose hand on powerful laptop or netbook. Tablet is now being used in hospitals, educational institutions, business boardrooms and for personal use for projecting ideas, images, spreading data, playing games & music and so on…Also some applications in tablets provides audio-visual communications too! Furthermore, arrival of Smartphones have rang death bell for PCs industry. Smartphones enable most of the functions offered by netbooks and PDA devices and as Tablets. 

     In the technological war, HP emerged as world’s largest IT company and also ranked 1^st in Global Pcs market. Market rivals like Acer Inc., Apple Inc., Dell Inc. and Lenovo giving tight competition in the market. HP has grown in size with mergers and acquisition strategy to expand the business. The acquisition of Compaq (2001) and Palm (2010) considered to be very crucial milestone for HP (HP Annual Report, 2010).

     The journey from stone age to software and platform to palm has transformed the world of PCs industry.  The PCs industry started with Charles Babbage’s calculating machine, recent news, HP’s one of the potential rival Apple launched Intel’s second generation quad-core iMac desktop, a non-PC manufacturing but market Smartphone leader Research In Motion (RIM) is out with its own tablet Blackberry Playbook and LG – a consumer electronic company jumped in PCs industry with its latest G-Slate android Honeycomb tablet (CNET, 2011), HP is still counting on its forthcoming TouchPad tablet.

References

Brown, R. (2011, May 03). Apple refreshes iMacs with faster CPUs, Thunderbolt ports. Crave – The Gadget Blog from CNET.  Retrieved on May 03, 2011 from http://news.cnet.com/apple-refreshes-imacs-with-faster-cpus-thunderbolt-ports/8301-17938_105-20058981-1.html

Cha, B. (2011, May 02). BlackBerry PlayBook gets video chat, Facebook apps. Dialed In – Keeping you connected to the world of cell phones. Retrieved on May 03, 2011 from http://www.cnet.com/8301-17918_1-20058829-85.html?tag=mncol;title

Datamonitor. (2010, December). Global PCs. Retrieved on March 13, 2011 from http://0-search.ebscohost.com.helin.uri.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=57332064&site=bsi-live

Datamonitor. (2010, December). PCs in Asia-Pacific. Retrieved on March 15, 2011 from http://0-search.ebscohost.com.helin.uri.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN =57332057&site=bsi-live

Franklin, E. (2011, April 18). T-Mobile G slate. Reviews. Retrieved on May 03, 2011 from http://reviews.cnet.com/tablets/t-mobile-g-slate/4505-3126_7-34545777.html?tag=productCarousel;carouselOverviews#reviewPage1

Timeline of Computer History. (2011). Timeline of Computer History: Exhibits. Computer History Museum. Retrieved on May 02, 2010 from http://www.computerhistory.org/timeline/

World wide mobile PC Sales. (2010, January). PC Sales Will Top 300M Units in 2010. Computer Industry Almanac Inc. [Press Release]. Retrieved on May 03, 2011 from http://www.c-i-a.com/pr012010.htm