Skyrocketing sales of tablets and mobile devices made some analysts say that desktop and laptop PCs - once the most used device for home computing - are beginning to collect dust in many households. The numbers are starting to show that: Last week, Microsoft, a company whose business depends heavily on sales of PCs and related software, announced that its first-quarter net income dropped by 22%, with revenue down 8% from a year before. That followed an earlier report by research firm IDC that global PC shipments fell by 8.6% in the last quarter.

Do you think tablets and smartphones can really replace your laptop and desktop? A tablet or smartphone has its place and is good for all sorts of things, but I fail to see how it can adequately replace a mouse and keyboard in terms of productivity for all sorts of sectors - including, for instance, film and music editing. I can see how tablets might enhance all these things - but not how they could replace them. Tablet computers and smartphones offer no consequential advantage over PCs as far as everyday computing is concerned, and not only that, but they leave a lot to be desired. Running your greasy fingers all over the computer screen is hardly an improvement over the keyboard and mouse. Furthermore, almost all tablets and smartphones come with lockdowns that severely restrict (and sometimes eliminate) the user's ability to program, upgrade, or in any other way utilize the full power of a computer. This means that they are far from ideal for real power users.

There is still a colossal number of PCs in the world, most of them owned and operated by businesses whose purchasing decisions are very different from those of individuals. To date, the tablet and smartphone frenzy has been mainly a consumer phenomenon. That doesn't mean companies aren't buying and deploying tablets, just that they're not doing it at the same pace as consumers are. And their huge investment on computer systems - large networks of PCs running Microsoft Windows - means that a move to tablets would require radical changes in their IT infrastructures. Companies won't make those changes lightly in a tough economic climate, especially if their boring old PCs are providing a "good enough" service - which most probably are. Its just another classic case of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Some analysts argue that what's happening is a convergence of computing devices; with the desktop moving to become the home server. They contend that the market is not actually disappearing, but becoming more specialized. And that eventually, it will be more difficult to differentiate tablets from PCs.

Erik Kain, in his Forbes article, wrote:

A tablet has its place and is good for all sorts of things, but I fail to see how it can adequately replace a mouse and keyboard in terms of productivity for all sorts of sectors - including, for instance, blogging. Or gaming. Or film and music editing. I can see how tablets might enhance all these things - but not how they could replace them. it seems much more likely that we'll see tablets and PCs designed to work together rather than a push to replace PCs with tablets altogether.