Wintel

I recently read an article on the demise of Wintel and it got me thinking. For many years the computer industry was dominated by MSFT and Intel because the vast majority of users ran Windows on an Intel computer. But that seems to be  changing, and very quickly.

Part of the reason for this change is the way people use computers and what they use them for. Social networking has become the driving force because it's what people do with their computers. And you don't need a $2,000 Win7 computer with a quad-core processor and 8GB of RAM for Facebook. Your phone or a tablet computer will work just fine. And that's where Wintel is losing big time.

When I look back on the last dozen internet devices I tested, none of them use Windows and very few have Intel processors. This includes eBook readers, tablet computers and smartphones. All of them can access the internet, handle email, and just about anything else I want to do with them.

Wintel will be around far into the future because there's still a need for high-powered computers for many other tasks. But the day of Wintel controlling 90% of the market is gone for good.