As an avid reader of Technology news, I felt a major shift in PC market. Most of the analysts are already talking about the shift from PCs to Tablets, Smart Phones and other kinds of hand held devices. Here are my opinions about these changes. I am NOT an expert in anything that I discuss in this post. I am just an observer with some interest in both business and technology.

I feel that we are witnessing the raise of a few new leaders and the fall of a few giants. Could Apple, Samsung or Motorola can be replacements of HP
and Dell? Can Qualcomm and TI overshadow Intel and AMD? Is it possible to see Microsoft making way to Google as the largest Operating System vendor? I feel the answer is “Yes” to most of these questions. If you are interested to see my views on these, keep reading…

PC market is contracting fast. New hand held devices market is all set to fly high. We are witnessing one of the great technological changes in the history. Most of us might have seen the evolution of computers at the end of 20th century. Now it’s the turn of hand held devices. Demand for PCs is reducing at an alarming pace. PC makers are busy with redefining their strategies. We may witness disappearance of some of the today’s technology giants. At least some of them will lose their relevance eventually.

With the introduction of iPhone, Apple has created a new wave of technological change. iPhone introduction erased the boundaries between powerful PCs and
not-so-powerful hand held devices. As most of the PC users use them for accessing Internet, Apple wanted to lock them in a whole new market. Apple, in fact, created this new market. iPhone let the users access Internet at their finger taps. Users don’t have to be at home or to carry a big ~7lb laptop/netbook. Users don’t have to be technically sound. Even a lay man can easily use it. Apple’s focus on user interaction made things much easier to the end user. As the trend setter, Apple has established its brand very well in the hand held device market. Thanks to iPod, that laid the foundation to Apple in consumer market.

Apple is able to manage a much impact by its later releases of iPhone too. However, this new market attracted new players as well as its future has become very
attractive. Google entered the hand held device OS market with its Android Operating System. It’s already out numbered Apple in the number of pieces sold. Its open software strategy worked well to promote Android in less time. As a result, most of the smart phone vendors readily grabbed a well developed, well designed and free-to-use Operating System. Motorola, Samsung, HTC are the first to release smart phones with Android on them. As of now, Google didn’t
declare their strategy on Android, to make money out of it. However, they are keen to compete Apple in smart phone software market. Android is all set to become the Windows of hand held devices.

Tablets are the devices which might make PCs look awkward. People are preferring to use a light weighted , easy to use and easy to carry tablets to PCs. PCs gave way to laptop which in turn made the way to netbooks. However, Netbooks didn’t enjoy the supremacy for a long time. They had to give up the market to tablets. Again Apple is the one to ignite the craze. Though iPod and iPad are not the first devices of their kind, they made their categories popular. There were iPod-like devices and iPad-like devices before they entered the market. However, Apple was the one to nurture the consumer interest in those markets.

After observing the developments in PC market, I strongly feel some companies are going to get affected negatively and some positively. Here are a few players to start with.

HP

Being the world’s largest PC maker, Hewlett-Packard is going to get hurt with the diminishing PC market. They acquired Palm some time back to have a jump start in hand held devices market. Though HP had their presence in smart phone market in the form of iPAQ, I don’t think they commanded any significant share in that market. With the acquisition of Palm, HP got their hands on Palm’s positively-reviewed OS, WebOS. This new move changed its plans for its table PC, the release which was deferred as a result. Back when HP Slate was introduced in CES 2010 (Consumer Electronics Show), it was running Windows OS on it. Rumors are, HP might release it with WebOS on it.

Pros:

• As HP has expertise in PC manufacturing and marketing, it won’t be hard to them to turn a corner. They can easily jump into the tablet PC market.

• They can leverage Palm’s expertise to fare well in smart phone market too.  WebOS has already received kudos from critics.

Cons:

• Obviously HP is not the forerunner in this market. It has to compete in this market as a follower, at least initially.

• Palm’s WebOS doesn’t enjoy the existence of plethora of Apps that iPhone’s OS and Google’s Android do. In fact, lack of Apps could even rule out WebOS or any other smart phone OS of the market.

Microsoft

Yesterday’s software leader, Microsoft could be another loser. As per one of the reports, Microsoft’s Windows phone OS could fall below 4% of the market share
by 2014. Already phone makers like Samsung and HTC joined the Android bandwagon by ditching Microsoft. Microsoft itself released a couple of mobiles with their Windows OS on them. However, many people are unaware of their existence too. Kin one and Kin two, the two Social Networking based mobiles, hardly made their mark which were eventually abandoned with in a couple of months of their inception.

Pros:

• As we all know, Microsoft Windows is the most widely used Operating System and it would be so for some more time. With their expertise in OS, they can come back again with a well revamped Windows Phone OS (Windows Mobile was recently renamed to Windows Phone).

• Considering their deep pockets, they can go for shopping. Dell could be a choice of interest. Dell can give Microsoft a quick jump into hardware market. (It is still a mystery to me why Microsoft is not in to hardware market yet). Otherwise, not many companies are left in this domain to grab.

Cons:

• It seems like Microsoft is losing their ground in their PC OS market too. Vista was one of the worst reviewed operating systems that Microsoft has ever produced. It was so bad that most of the Vista users were allowed to upgrade their OS to Windows 7 for $0 (zero dollars).

• iOS and Android are ahead in the race of hand held device OS market. It might be too late for Microsoft to regain its lost market share.

• Microsoft has been fighting Open Source community for a while now. Even if it manages to get some share from iOS, Android would be a hard nut to crack. It might not be easy for Microsoft to grab share from Android, given Windows’ not-so-open platform.

• Unlike Apple, Microsoft doesn’t have any hardware unit to back its operating system. It has to depend on hardware vendors like HP, Dell etc.

Research In Motion

Another sufferer by the change in smart phone market would be Research In Motion. Its smart phone brand, Black Berry is already seeing decreasing growth levels while losing share to its rivals. We still have to wait and see how RIM can perform in days to come. At least as of now, it doesn’t seem to be in a good shape.

Intel

Another big giant that could get affected by this trend shift is Intel. They have recently lowered their outlook on revenues of next quarter, sighting, the decrease in PC demand as the reason. Lately, they announced their purchase of Infineon’s unit that manufactures processors for smart phones. I see this as a desperate move to get into hand held devices market. Intel processors are impeccable for PCs. However, their hand held device counterparts are always complained as power thirsty. High power consumption is an intolerable aspect to the mobile vendors. Either Intel has to make their processors more power efficient or inves some money to invent better battery technology. The latter would not be a real solution to the problem. However if the research pays off, the invention could patch the problem temporarily. Currently Hand held devices’ processor market is dominated by the companies like Qualcomm, Texas Instruments etc. Intel-bought Infineon unit has a meager 5% market share approximately.

Nokia

Nokia is the largest mobile phone maker in the world. It has been enjoying this place for more than a decade now. Today, it sells one mobile out of every three
mobiles sold world wide. Though Nokia has one third of the mobile phone market share, company’s future doesn’t seem to be bright. During last few years it has been losing market share to other companies. They have to impress the consumers with a real smart phone yet. Their prestigious N-series is far from competing iPhone-like smart phones. As the mobile phone world was changing very rapidly, Nokia doesn’t seem to be responding to any of those changes.  Their yet-to-be-released N8 is coming with a new and revamped version of their Symbian OS (Symbian 3). However, it looks like, Symbian couldn’t be an answer to iOS or Android. Unless Nokia embraces Android OS, it might be hard to them to retain their position. Nokia is also betting on a Linux based OS called MeeGo. MeeGo is also open sourced and it uses the same Linux kernel as Android does. Nokia is developing this in collaboration with Intel. However, it could be too late by the time Nokia releases a mobile with MeeGo.

Dell

Dell could be the biggest sufferer of this shift. Historically Dell did well as a reason of their procurement process efficiency.  They made the purchase, a pleasant experience to the customers. As the practice paid back, Dell has become the largest PC seller in the world before it lost the position to HP. Dell is a living example (living at least as of now) to the fact – Operational Excellence can’t be a strategy. Dell has believed and overly relied on operational excellence which was easily recreated by their competitors, like HP. Now Dell is at number 3 after HP and Acer.

Dell has foreseen the technological shift coming in the PC market. It recently came to the market with their new hand held device – Streak. Dell Streak falls
somewhere between a smart phone and a tablet. However, response from consumers doesn’t seem to be overwhelming if not, disappointing. Unless they come up with a very impressive device with good quality hardware, the state of the art technology and best design, days are numbered to them. An acquisition could give Dell some oxygen. Could that be Microsoft or Google? Could be.

AMD

AMD is another company that would be hit very badly. It is the only major alternative to Intel in PC world. However, this market itself is losing the demand.
Hence chances of growth at AMD are minimal.

While struggling to cope up with the dynamics of the market, the current leaders are making the way to smaller/newer players like Samsung, Qualcomm, TI, ARM Holdings etc. This month, Samsung launched their tablet with Android OS on it. All four major carriers, AT&T, Verizon, Sprint-Nextel and T-Mobile are going to sell this tablet. Samsung might emerge as one of the leaders in this field. Its new Android based smart phone Galaxy S already hit the market and reaping fruits to the company.

Qualcomm and TI are the current leaders in hand held device processor market. They could become the Intel-like companies in this arena.

Bottom line:

Change is imminent. It’s always been in the air. Those who foresee it and respond to it, can reap the benefits. While others who fail to respond will face loses,
may even disappear. Corporations could be big. But they can’t afford being so big that their own progress is impeded by their size. That’s what, I feel, has been happening with Microsoft and other few big companies.

Pisupat Venkata Krishna