Tabs Not Toys, PCs Dead: Deloitte
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And tablets are “more than just a toy”, say analysts.
PCs watch out- your days are numbered as Smartphones and notebooks and “non-PC’s” flood the market in 2011, accounting for more than half of all computing devices sold. 

The flexibility and mobility these new devices afford will be what wins users over as competition heats up between them and the traditional desk top computer. 

“Non-PC devices put a world of information and computing power at your fingertips anytime and anywhere,” says Deloitte Head of Media & Telecommunications, Damien Tampling.    

The PC era is over , the analysts said today, and this year “represents a tipping point as we move from a world of mostly standardized PC-like devices to a far more heterogeneous environment.”     

This major shift in device consumption marks a watershed in the technology space and one which rewrites all the rules in terms of data usage, location and content access, speeding up the where, when and how of online networking.       

“This unprecedented capability will lead to breakthroughs in everything from operating systems and enterprise computing,” Tampling says.       

And competition between notebooks and other portable devices is set to heat up even further and contain far more sophisticated processing chips and operating systems, such as Intel Sandy Bridge chips tipped for Toshibas Portege 800 as well as Samsung and Lenovo notebooks.      

The onslaught of competing OS’s both on the Smartphone and notebook front between the likes of Apple’s iOs, Google Android, Microsoft Windows 7 and others means a titianic battle will be fought on this front with each system vying for makers and consumers preference.

Notebook kings Acer recently admited the computer market is changing faster than they can keep up with and are moving swiftly towards building their tablet OS range set for a 2011 launch which is said to be followed by Smartphone launch, their first step onto the mobile world.

They have also upped their notebook offering, premiering a slew of new models at this years CES.

“This range of devices available to users is getting wider and tablets are just another piece of the mosaic,” Acer said.

Notebooks just released have also upped their intelligence with a rake of multi-media capabilities as standard including the NVIDIA GeForce graphics processing units, which 200 new products in the first half of 2011 that feature  this year.

 
Apple’s iPad and other tablets, almost unheard of only a year ago,  are also set to explode – among business users in particular – with a whopping 10 million devices set to leave retailers’ shelves this year.        

“Although some commentators view tablets as underpowered media-consumption toys suitable only for consumers, more than 10 million of these devices will likely be purchased by enterprises in 2011,” according to Deloitte.