Replies to post #113428 on Intel Corp (INTC)

[wbmw]

None of those drivers seemed to have helped the offset the PC declines into Q3 and Q4.

True, Intel's PC group reported 8% less revenues than a year ago.

But when you consider that part of that was driven by anticipation for Windows 8, and part of it was driven by an overall poor global economy, you'd think that tablets would have done a lot more damage. They did, after all, see nearly 50% growth over the past year, up to 27.7 million units.

http://beta.fool.com/analyse360degree/2012/11/08/will-ipad-mini-help-apple-get-back-its-lost-market/15980/?ticker=GOOG&source=eogyholnk0000001

So I'd say PC decline sure as hell has been offset by the strength of the PC usage model.

Your argument essentially boils down to "tablets are a fad". Fair enough.

Uh... no. Tablet as a form factor is here to stay. Dreams of tablets fully replacing the PC, however, is a fad.

In the "Post-PC Era", the PC is alive and well - it just brings some of the tablet usages into the platform itself, such as touchscreens, better mobility in terms of weight and size reductions, better responsiveness in terms of disk access, and longer battery life through power reduction.

Some people will own a tablet, regardless, but others will opt for a single device that can both perform like a PC as well as a tablet. No one is offering such devices today, except for Intel. The others duplicate the form factor, but lack PC compatibility. They will never be as useful, or as popular.

The two questions worth asking in terms of Intel versus their competitors is - who can build a better tablet? And who can build a better device. Intel is the only one capable of building a PC convertible device, so they win there. Apple could choose to follow with a MacOS based convertible that morphs into a tablet, but they've already suggested they think it's a bad idea. We'll see if they reverse posture following Intel's success.

As for tablets, I think Intel can build a better tablet than nVidia or Qualcomm. Whether they can go up against Apple remains to be seen, but at least Samsung has shown that it's possible.