Well, another tech post

I was reading Techrepublic today and in one of the threads there were a whole bunch of (ignorant) people going on about how the desktop is obsolete, noone will be making them anymore soon, expansion card makers will go out of business, etc.

Seriously. How can you people know so much about computers and still stay stupid shtuff like that.

Ten years ago people were saying the same thing. "Well with these Pentium 4's and Athlon's that are coming out now, laptops now have enough power to rival desktops for most uses, and they are more portable. The desktop is gonna die by 2011!"

Why do some people continue to fail to understand that desktops fill an important role in the digital ecosystem? Both consumers and businesses appreciate a platform that is easily maintainable AND upgradeable AND cost-effective. The kids still readily use desktops when they are at home.

Yeah, a laptop works fine too 8 times out of 10, but to get one that isn't loaded with cr*pware or to have the horsepower needed to mitigate the effects of said program-garbage, you do tend to spend noticeably more than you would for a similarly-speced desktop.

Look, the same things can be said for firearms. Rifles are fine for some things, side arms are of more use in other situations. You can get a perfectly acceptable bolt action rifle for $200-300 (at least you could up until recently). For a "I can sleep at night knowing"-grade reliability semi-auto pistol, you are looking at $500-1000. And even then you do not have a weapon with the range of a rifle. They fill two important, yet different, roles.

So in other words, the desktop, laptop, smartphone, and tablet are all tools that have particular uses in the given ecosystem, and any one of these devices cannot totally replace the functionality of any of the others. How in earth can the other three possibly displace the desktop's unique set of skills and abilities anytime in the foreseeable future? It's just going to magically disappear, because there are mobile devices out there with Internet Explorer, Chrome and Safari? Bull!

You might see desktop (and laptop) computers coming out with operating systems that have smartphone influences (Windows 8 can use the Windows Phone 7 inspired Metro UI in addition to the classic Windows landscape, Android OS is coming to PCs, and so on). But the tool that these accessories attach to is not going anywhere, anytime soon.