The research firm IDC predicts that in 2011, computing’s third major technology wave will become mainstream, when computers held in one’s hand — smartphones and tablets — really take over and start putting personal computers in the rearview mirror.
Next year, the research firm says in a report published Thursday, there will be 330 million smartphones sold worldwide and 42 million media tablets. Tablet sales are expected to more than double next year, and to keep climbing, “breezing by netbooks, the phenomenon of two years ago,” said Frank Gens, chief analyst for IDC.
“The PC-centric era is over,” the IDC report says. Within 18 months, it forecasts, non-PC devices capable of running software applications will outsell PCs. In tablets, IDC adds, Apple’s iPad will remain the leader, but lower-cost tablets will begin making inroads, especially as demand for tablets really takes off in emerging markets.
IDC uses a hardware-centered definition of technology eras — devices that open up computing to large new groups of users. So, by its definition, the first era began in the 1960s, when many people got access to computers, seated at mainframe terminals. Next came personal computers in the 1980s, and mobile devices that are full-fledged computers were next.
Mainstream adoption, according to IDC, is when a technology moves well beyond 15 percent or so of the market. In 2011, for example, IDC predicts half of the 2.1 billion people who regularly use the Internet will do so using non-PC devices.
Other technologies, IDC says, are going mainstream as well, notably the business use of cloud computing — applications and services accessed remotely over the Internet. The trend is already under way, and all the major technology companies are marketing their cloud-computing offerings relentlessly — even though crisply defined cloud strategies seem scarce.
But 2011, Mr. Gens said, is a crucial year for technology companies to get their cloud strategies in place. So-called public clouds — shared by a wide range of users, whether consumers or companies — will be “the dominant technology platform for the next 20 years,” Mr. Gens said.
In the corporate market, Microsoft, salesforce.com, Google, I.B.M., Oracle and others are vying to supply cloud applications to businesses. “These public cloud marketplaces will be the next generation of enterprise software,” Mr. Gens said.
Indeed, 80 percent of new software offerings will be available as cloud services in 2011, according to IDC.