Gartner: Preparing PC industry

Gartner analysts predict that in the next few months the world PC industry will "molt".

This will be the biggest change in the last 20 years. All decisions made during this time may affect the industry for a decade or more.

Speaking at the Itxpo Conference, which is being held in Florida, Gartner analysts say the major change will take place in the areas of hardware, software and technology management.

Stephen Kleynhans, Gartner's vice president, said: " Windows Vista has been the biggest change in operating systems since Windows 2000 launched. However, application of this new operating system version will not be an easy thing, organizations need to carefully consider the effects caused by Vista . '

In the field of hardware, the introduction of microprocessor chips based on Intel-branded Core microarchitecture has put an end to traditional methods of calculating cost and performance.

Gartner also forecasts that the trend of switching from desktop to laptop will continue to be strong. By about 2008, the cost of buying laptops in businesses would be equivalent to the investment costs for desktop computers.

PC management methods will also change. Gartner predicts that the boundaries between enterprise PC systems and family PCs will be erased. Meanwhile, the tendency to prefer to use their own devices will become more pronounced in the user community.

Gartner Ranjit Atwal, an analyst, said: ' Basically, there is a clear separation between users and the specialized IT department in the enterprise. The technical side wants to control it closely and users want to use the device to their liking. The next generation of users will require more freedom. Virtualization is the solution to this problem. Users will be free to use the PC while the technical side will still secure the database of the whole enterprise '.

Atwal also said that Vista will be Microsoft's final operating system. ' In the future we will only be able to see different' variants' of Vista. The trend of the future operating system is the virtualization application-based operating system suitable for each individual user object . '

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