[PCWorld]

Post your comments for Acer sheds eMachines, turns to Gateway and Packard Bell for post-PC era here

[RobC0oqz]

"...post-PC era..."

You've got to be kidding! Pundits have been naïvely proclaiming the PC's demise for the last 20 years. The PC is far from dead. Tens of thousands of businesses in the US alone rely on PC's every day to run their business. Laptops and to a lesser degree tablets have made some inroads but the PC still rules and will easily rule for a few more decades.

[MKZ1945]

I’m thinking there are many people that primarily used their PCs and Laptops for email and playing solitaire and discovered they could do that fairly easily with about any tablet costing half or less of what they would pay for a computer. The rest of us will still be using PCs for more intense computer use even though we may also have a tablet and/or smartphone for the simple stuff. The platform may change over time but I expect PCs will be around for awhile yet.

[mjd420nova]

PB will always find a niche market to keep abreast and profitable. Gateway, not so much. PCs will never really die, tablets offer another method to do little work and more play. For work, those desktops just run away from the laptops and don't need a battery. Emachines were a cheap alternative and did remarkably well getting the hardware to beat the warrantee but few parts were made available and third party replacements became transplants. I still use a 1985 IBM AT (80286) for home security.

[krblanco]

The PC isn't going to die anytime soon. If anything the market suffers from several things. Including increased quality, making products last longer than ever - I've got an Acer Aspire Laptop that after six years is still going as strong as the day I brought it home. This goes towards market/device complancie in that what I've got works and suits my needs so why do I need to replace it? I've no plans to replace my perfectly fine Acer laptop with a new perfectly fine laptop. Also that there's more computers available to the consumer than ever, just as Ford and GM parred down their brands in response to more auto-brands than ever being available. There's just a glut of product available at inexpensive prices which leads to a slow down. And finally that the consumer is moving towards more mobile computing needs and sure, we're not tethered to our computers anymore for information, but a PC will if anything be there for the heavy lifting. I recently put together a PowerPoint presentation for my office on both a PC at work and a laptop at home. I'd never do that on a tablet or smart phone.

[PopsTX]

The way this office treats different devices -or the way devices are used, is pretty simple. The group that actually CREATES content and Data for consumption by a variety of consumers, use a genuine Linux driven desktop.

Other employees, who routinely offer "Face to Face" dealings, have an enormous array of devices from which to choose.

Simply put: Wanna Play or actually don't need to create anything or answer anything more than a Yes or No question -use a handheld device. Gotta do some real work: NOTHING beats a PC.

[Freedom69]

the manufacturing is the problem

[ronin7752]

I have to say yet again (ad nauseum) that "PC" stands for "Personal Computer". A tablet is as much a "PC" as any desktop or laptop.

This whole "Post-PC" claim is just a media creation designed entirely to appeal to IT adrenaline junkies who won't read anything unless it promises something dramatic.

The reality: I've been supporting PC End-Users since the DOS days. Currently, I'd estimate 1/3 to 1/2 of all individual PC owners use them mostly for simple tasks -- email, web browsing, and other simple apps. Those end users will migrate to tablets because they meet their needs, are simpler to use, and are more mobile.

Because of this, laptop and desktop sales will decrease and then stabilize at a lower percentage of all "PC" sales (which includes tablets) -- but they will never go away. ....And this is really no different than what happened to desktop sales as laptops began to cut into them.

There are really no surprises here -- just the hype that the IT media needs to generate in order to stay profitable by "goosing" the gullible IT groupies.

[Wolfytech]

Jan of 2012 My 2009 HP Laptop Smoked I looking for Computer I Choses a Desktop over laptop . I bought a eMachines System from Walmart It had 2.28GHZ AMD Athlon II X2 AM3 it had some crappy on Board Nividia On Board Graphic's 1TB Hard Drive 3GB Ram it Called Power House Slim
For Price it was good Replacement for Core 2 duo Laptop . It came with Windows 7 Home Prem 64bit . Now System right now Renders Video and Plays Games . I stuck more money into system . XFX AMD Video Card Fanless Slim Card 512Ram Turbo 1GB PCI Express X16 2.0 I also Over Clocked the Card to Max . I Max Out Motherboard with 8GB G.Skill Ram and Update OS Windows 8 Pro 64bit . It very good Computer for money I put in to it . And I sad to see the brand go Guess I bought one last eMachines Power House System Built . They might be Cheap but upgradeing them Unleashing a lot power from such a Small cases