g-unit1111 :
Barty1884 :
Between Dell, HP etc..... isn't this typical of most business models? 5-6 years upgrade paths..... overhauls of entire office setups
Most HR departments would probably squeeze the budget further than that. PC and software upgrades are the scourge of overhead budgets in most companies.
It goes higher up the chain than that in my experience. All the way to the CEO. Corporate leadership bookworm keepers feel that budgeting for workstation upgrades is not worth the bottom line. My previous company for example, EMC (now owned by Dell), held onto Windows XP Pentium IV based workstations from the early '00s through 2011 before finally upgrading. Seriously. A storage/computer company not giving their employees the latest tech. Full retard.
Anyway, consumers will always need power that smart phones and tablets cannot do. I see those devices as more of an accessory than a fully replacement desktop or power laptop useful device. Also, more and more people these days are getting into video editing and other productivity applications which cannot be done on said devices. That and they need bigger display screens to use said apps on. So no, PCs will never die out or be replaced.
This is similar to those who say digital cameras are dying out in demand because smart phones take good photos. Well for the basic point-and-shooter, that may be the case. But a lot of people out there still want a dedicated digital camera for better shots, be it handheld point and shoot or all the way up to SLRs with big zoom lenses.