http://businesstech.co.za/news/hardw...the-pc-market/

So it's not (yet) as bad as predicted. At least not in the more developed regions where tablet sales seem to have hit a dip.

I'm just not too sure about the "cloud computing" idea. Sure it's a nice to have, but online isn't always "on", no matter what anyone tries. Not to mention, it only works reasonably if your infrastructure is fast, cheap and reliable, else it's less than useless (literally).

And from my own experiences, it's not even a good solution in all cases e.g.: AutoDesk's cloud rendering service took longer on some renderings than a local group of 5 workstations, cost a lot more, and had the added "benefit" of huge amounts of bandwidth used. You'd have imagined something like a batch rending is an ideal form of cloud computing: send model to servers, continue with working on something else, receive finished product in email. But no, it ended up not only slower, but also screwed up the render results as the server's engine was different to the preview on the workstation and custom materials didn't load properly!

If I think about it, I feel the future is a situation where the phone/table/PC amalgamates into a full "Computer" which is portable, has lots of "power" so it can handle the software locally, but is connected for that time when you want to use some "cloud". For that to happen, 2 major inventions need to occur or be improved: Input & Output - keyboard/mouse and screen.