You get the PC you pay for
C|Net | at | by Mike
In the consumer sector, we believe that increasingly more complex games and ever richer entertainment will drive processing demand upward. In the corporate market, we believe that a wide range of new uses will emerge during the next two to six years that will consume more processing power at the client. Although no single "killer application" will drive PCs to 3GHz, 5GHz or 10GHz, we expect a wide range of new software and components that will, in aggregate, severely tax current PC resources and necessitate the growth in computing power.
However, because the increases in demand for processing power will be steady and incremental rather than the result of a sudden change in software or hardware features, they offer no short-term salve for PC sellers that have been struggling to find a way to jump-start the consumer and corporate PC markets. Likewise, organizations responding to the current economic downturn by lengthening desktop and laptop life cycles beyond three years will face no near-term disadvantage from failing to immediately boost the power available on desktops.