Think of the PC and we immediately think of companies such as
But that reign is coming to an end. As consumers and enterprise buyers spend more of their dollars on portable post-PC devices, the balance of power is going to change.
With this in mind, what companies should we expect to benefit from this shift from desktops and notebooks to smartphones and tablet?
Yes, let's get the most obvious company to benefit from the shift from the PC to post-PC devices out of the way first.
While the Mac never really presented much of the threat to the dominance of the PC – during its best quarter (Q1 2012) Apple only managed to shift a shade over 5 million Macs – Apple's introduction of two wildly successful post-PC devices certainly had an enormous effect. The iPad in particular has a massive negative impact of PC shipments, and in a little over three years has turned the market from one that was seeing healthy year-on-year growth to one that is now in a possible fatal tailspin.
Apple's might – its $417 billion market cap, and its $145 billion cash reserves – have been built primarily off the back of post-PC device sales.
Yes, Apple has done spectacularly well from the iPhone and the iPad, and unless the creative well has run dry over in Cupertino, there's no reason not to think that Apple won't be spearheading the post-PC thrust for years to come.
Image via CrunchBase
You won't see the Qualcomm logo on the outside of any smartphone or tablet currently on sale, but pop one open and chances are high that you'll find a chip – or possibly many chips – supplied by this company nestled on the mainboard.
Qualcomm is an American semiconductor company based in San Diego, California that designs and manufactures chips that are at the heart of many of the smartphones and tablets now on the market. The iPhone and iPad are home to Qualcomm chips, and Samsung's new Galaxy S4 contains no fewer than six different parts from Qualcomm, including the Snapdragon 600 quad-core processor.
As 4G LTE becomes the norm, Qualcomm's grip on the post-PC world will increase. The company's Snapdragon 600 processor is winning a lot of friends among handset makers because its built in support for 4G LTE, Wi-Fi, USB, Bluetooth, and FM radio vastly simplifies handset design, making handsets cheaper to design and manufacture.
We should expect big things from Qualcomm over the coming years.
NVIDIA
Image via CrunchBase
Think PC graphics cards and you will no doubt come up with two names – AMD and NVIDIA. But since PC sales have gone into free-fall, NVIDIA has been working hard to diversify and transform itself into a big player in the post-PC world.
NVIDIA's long background in GPUs means that it has extensive experience in processors, and it has been putting this to good use in developing the Tegra line of mobile chips.
While there is no doubt that NVIDIA is feeling the pressure from the likes of Qualcomm, the company's background – not to mention the fact that it saw the value of entering into the mobile space before the PC sales machine stalled – means that it has the know-how to carve out a space for itself in this new sector.
Amazon
After several hardware companies, you might be surprised to see Amazon making the list. After all, doesn't Amazon just sell books and stuff?
It's true that Amazon is the biggest online retailer, but it is a company that has never let the grass grow under its feet. While at its heart Amazon is still a bookstore, it has over the years grown and diversified into a one-stop-shop for all things – both physical and virtual. Not only can you purchase things to be delivered to you in cardboard boxes, you can also get that instant fix in the form of digital downloads – videos, games, books, and apps.
Ever since the release of the first Kindle ebook reader, Amazon has made slow but determined progress into the post-PC arena.
While the Kindle had broad appeal, it was ultimately only an ebook reader. But this all changed with Amazon unveiled its Kindle Fire range of tablets. Suddenly it became clear why Amazon has invested so much into building digital services.
While Amazon is coy about what direction it is taking the Kindle ecosystem in, one thing is very clear – Amazon is happy to slash prices to the bone. The current crop of Kindle Fire HD tablets are prices such that Amazon is hardly making a dime off the base models. Amazon is banking on downstream sales of content to buoy its bottom line, which is something that the likes of Samsung, or for that matter even Apple, cannot rely on.
Rumors abound that Amazon's ultimate goal is a $99 Android tablet, and if it achieves that goal, expect the tablet market to be turned on its head. It'll be like the iPad all over again, only with a price tag that's accessible to almost anyone who wants in on the post-PC era.
The carriers
Not one company, but a whole industry, and it is one that's overlooked by many, yet plays a vital part in the post-PC world of today.
While it is easy to focus on the hardware side of things, it's also important to consider the infrastructure that makes the post-PC world possible, and the backbone of that is the wireless carrier network.
Every smartphone and 3G/4G-enabled tablet needs are subscription to a carrier, whether that be on a contract basis or a pay-as-you-go model, and the explosion of smartphones and tablets has meant a bonanza for the carriers, and people desperate for the latest tech sign up to multi-year contracts.
As calls and text messages fall out of vogue, data has become the new cash cow. Back when people weren't using much data – pre iPhone days – carriers would routinely offer 'all-you-can-eat' data packages, but as demands for data have increased, so has the price.
As more and more tablets and smartphones flood the market – not just here but in developing countries – expect the network carriers to come up with even more inventive ways to charge users for using the airwaves.
The carriers are set to become as important as ISPs have become over the past two decades. It is the carriers who turn out shiny baubles into indispensable devices that keep us plugged into the web.
