Beware the Motley Fool's advice
The Death of the PC
The days of paying for costly software upgrades are numbered. The PC will soon be obsolete. And BusinessWeek reports 70% of Americans are already using the technology that will replace it. Merrill Lynch calls it "a $160 billion opportunity." Computing giants including IBM, Yahoo!, and Amazon are racing to be the first to cash in on this PC-killing revolution.
Yet, a small group of little-known companies have a huge head start. Get the full details on these companies, and the technology that is about to destroy the PC, in a free video from The Motley Fool.
Okay. Aside from the obvious advance of technology, which dictates a high probability that some day personal computers as we know and use them today will no longer be the standard... we are nowhere near that day.
There are many reasons why these tired pronouncements of PC death are foolish; most obviously, these so-called PC-killers are really just PCs with different window dressing, as they contain the same technology our PCs already contain, albeit with much less power and adaptability. iPhones, HTCs, Blackberries, tablets, etc... they're all just comparatively weak and specialized PCs. So the notion of PCs permanently replacing PCs is a bit silly.
After actually laughing out loud at this latest croaking of impending doom, I then had some quick thoughts.
Yes, this was merely an advertisement for The Motley Fool, and as is so typical of marketing agency hyperbole, it shouldn't be consumed as fact. Yes, this was just one more prognostication of death for the PC, which has become a popular techno-legend, much like the previous propaganda about "the cloud" usurping PCs with billions of dumb, Internet-reliant terminals. There is no statistical evidence backing these proclamations in terms of dropping PC sales; the real reason we are occasionally treated to this poppycock is because some upstart company is trying to generate investor capital.
More significantly, beyond those observations, what became quite clear to me was this:
If this advertisement's message is what passes as wisdom from The Motley Fool web site, I won't ever be utilizing their financial advice, unless I wish to be a motley fool with empty pockets.