14 DAY TRIAL // Ever since tablets came out, market analysts and IT players have been hard pressed to classify them. Intel thinks the situation is serious enough that the entire idea of PC is about to shift.
Tablets have been confusing the world for the past two years. Some analysts have put them in the same category as smartphones, while others took them as a new type of PC.
Often enough, financial reports set them apart, as a product category all on their own.
It doesn't help that some tablets resemble PCs more than they do phones, while others cause the opposite impression.
Because of all this, Intel believes the word “PC” will soon stop meaning “desktops and laptops” sometime soon.
Tablets, after all, are gaining hardware and software capabilities quite similar to those of full computers.
They also sell in a bundle with keyboard docks or cases more often than not, which is another reason to view them as a new type of laptop.
Another thing is Windows 8. Windows has been the PC OS for decades, so adding it to slates suggests they are just the same thing under a different form.
“The form-factors are going to blur here. The performance requirements are going to be the same spectrum of performance requirements that we think we have seen in the PC space over the last two years,” said Paul Otellini, chief executive officer of Intel.
“The PC business, as we have known it and as it is evolving and I would include tablets in that because as we look forward, it is very difficult to distinguish between a detachable, clamshell notebook and a tablet.”
At this rate, there may come a time when the convertible tablet will mean the same thing as ultrabook convertible. In fact, there might not be any other kind of laptop later down the line.