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1 Billion PCs by End of 2008

Posted by CmdrTaco on Mon Jun 11, 2007 10:38 AM
from the most-in-landfills-by-2012 dept.
Hardware
javipas writes "Acording to a study published by Forrester Research, 2008 will be the year in wich a psychological barrier will be surpassed. By the end of next year there will be 1.000.000.000 computers all around the world, a number that will double itself in just five more years. The reason: the emerging markets of countries such as Brazil, China, India or Russia, which will be responsible for 775 million new PCs and laptop computers. Part of them, of course, coming from projects like the OLPC's one."
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  • In other news (Score:5, Funny)

    by Yetihehe (971185) on Monday June 11 2007, @10:40AM (#19466081)
    By the end of next year there will be 900.000.000 infected computers.
    • I for one welcome our future zombie overlords..

      (yeah, it's a tired joke, i know)

    • In still other news (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      In still other news, both Lunix and OSX will still capture the hearts and minds of an insignificant number of PC users.

  • IPv6 (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 11 2007, @10:41AM (#19466083)
    Good thing IPv6 is just around the corner, what with two billion PCs in 5 years.

  • That will be it then (Score:5, Funny)

    by Silver Sloth (770927) on Monday June 11 2007, @10:41AM (#19466087)

    The reason: the emerging markets of countries such as Brazil, China, India or Russia, which will be responsible of 775 new PCs and laptop computers.
    Seven hundred and seventy five computers!!!!! Wow, now that's what I call an emerging market
    • 77% perhaps?
    • I'm pretty sure they meant 775.000. I mean, that's the same number, but accurate to three places beyond the decimal, so you know there are no fractional computers. Or at least, that the fractional computers sum to an integer.

      What I'd really like to see is for them to patch up the error that says there's going to be *one* computer at the end of '08 (and to ten significant figures, no less!). Perhaps they meant a billion?

  • Whaaa???? (Score:5, Funny)

    by $RANDOMLUSER (804576) on Monday June 11 2007, @10:42AM (#19466125)

    which will be responsible of 775 new PCs and laptop computers. Part of them, of course, coming from projects like the OLPC's one."
    "Asparagus. Fireplace. Ladder. Mosquito." makes as much sense.

  • ok, so which joke do we go for here... (Score:4, Funny)

    by jollyreaper (513215) on Monday June 11 2007, @10:44AM (#19466143)
    Do we go with "billions and billions of" or the pinky held up to the mouth? Sagan or Evil? Maybe Evil Sagan? Yeah, Evil Sagan. I'm imagining passages from Demon-Haunted World read with a Dr. Evil accent. That's the ticket.

  • My that's one big botnet (Score:4, Interesting)

    by the_humeister (922869) on Monday June 11 2007, @10:45AM (#19466157)
    Perhaps we should start making environmentally friendly computers? I certainly don't want any of those toxins in my ground water.

  • psychological? (Score:4, Funny)

    by uofitorn (804157) on Monday June 11 2007, @10:47AM (#19466181)
    "...2008 will be the year in which a psychological barrier will be surpassed."

    If Bill Cosby ever decides to do a "Nerds say the dumbest things" show, it won't be hard to find good material here.

  • A Waste (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 11 2007, @10:48AM (#19466205)
    And almost all of those billion PCs will eventually find their way into tips and landfils, or crude pollutive 'recycling' pots in third world countries.

    The turnover of computers is so fast not because of natural outdating and failure of hardware but because of the bloating of operating systems and applications software. Windows 95 only needed 4mb of RAM. The increase of RAM and CPU requirements vastly outstrips increases of functionality and mostly resembles Moore's Law.

    People keep on buying expensive new computers to do the same things at the same speed. How many gigabytes of RAM will you need to check your email in 2020?

    • Re:A Waste (Score:5, Interesting)

      by jshriverWVU (810740) on Monday June 11 2007, @10:57AM (#19466359)
      Windows 95 only needed 4mb of RAM

      Flashback, wow... actually by todays standards what would qualify as an embedded system.

    • Re:A Waste (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Dan Ost (415913) on Monday June 11 2007, @11:27AM (#19466707)
      Now that computer technology has roughly plateaued, this replacement cycle will lengthen. We no longer live in a day where you need to upgrade your computer every couple of years just to handle software requirements. Computers are fast enough now that you're only forced to upgrade when your old computer dies.
        • I imagine that very few people will buy new machines just to be able to run Vista. People will run what they've got until they need a new machine. If that new machine comes with Vista, they'll simply adapt.

    • Re:A Waste (Score:5, Informative)

      by moranar (632206) on Monday June 11 2007, @12:17PM (#19467371) Homepage Journal
      Ahem. I was there, and I remember Windows 95 did jack shit with 4 mb of RAM. Maybe you're thinking of Windows 3.11?

      From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_'95 [wikipedia.org] :
      "Official system requirements were an Intel 80386 DX CPU of any speed, 4 MB of system RAM, and 50 MB of hard drive space. These minimal claims were made in order to maximize the available market of Windows 3.1 converts. This configuration was distinctly suboptimal for any productive use on anything but single tasking dedicated workstations due to the heavy reliance on virtual memory. Also, in some cases, if any networking or similar components were installed the system would refuse to boot with 4 Megabytes of RAM. It was possible to run Windows 95 on a 386 SX but this led to even less acceptable performance. To achieve optimal performance, Microsoft recommends an Intel 80486 or compatible microprocessor with at least 8 MB of RAM."

      • Well, you have to keep in mind that, even considering swap, hard drives by the time didn't have that much space, although they occupied a lot of it. Take a look at this comparison [wikimedia.org], a 5.25" 111 MB MFM drive against a 2.5" 6495 MB IDE drive. I remember running Windows 95 on a Pentium MMX 133MHz with a 256 MB HD and 8 MB RAM. I even managed to install Windows 98 on it, but it was a big mistake, as Win 98 SE hadn't been released yet and the first version (as most O.S. that come out Redmond since ever) was miser
  • Imagine a botnet of these!

  • prize (Score:4, Funny)

    by freeasinrealale (928218) on Monday June 11 2007, @10:53AM (#19466287)
    I think billionth should get a prize. A share in M$... a chair from chairman Ballmer... a big Mac... The mind boggles.
  • Better get some hand-cranks on those suckers because in 5 years times electricity (along with gas) will no longer be the take for granted utility that it is now.

    • Better get some hand-cranks on those suckers because in 5 years times electricity (along with gas) will no longer be the take for granted utility that it is now.

      Next-generation solar panels have three times the output of current models and if we chose we could be putting up nuclear reactors, using breeders to reprocess spent fuel, making nuclear not only profitable but also just about the cleanest thing around short of solar and wind. And given crystalline solar panels, it might be more clean than them, to

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by inviolet (797804)

        having temperatures and weather patterns that permit production of food, et cetera.

        Moving the temperate zones away from the equator and towards the poles will create more agricultural land, not less. Do you have any idea how much tundra there is, just sitting there uselessly frozen?

  • I suspect this is a classic typo error. A bit like this one: http://www.ntk.net/2003/01/10/dohmus.gif [ntk.net] or even this one: http://www.ntk.net/2004/05/28/doh2e.gif [ntk.net]
  • The reason: the emerging markets of countries such as Brazil, China, India or Russia, which will be responsible of 775 new PCs and laptop computers. Part of them, of course, coming from projects like the OLPC's one."

    Brazil, China, India OR Russia, make up your minds. ("responsible of 775" and "OLPC's one" already adequately mocked above)
  • And my first thought at seeing the title of this was the song 1,000,000 Lawyers by Tom Paxton.

  • vs 2B cellphones today (Score:5, Informative)

    by blackdefiance (142579) on Monday June 11 2007, @11:27AM (#19466699) Homepage
    There are already over 2B active cellphones in the world, and there will be more by the end of 2008... an interesting comparison of market penetration.
  • We already have over 1 billion computers on the face of the planet (working, non-working, and retired.)

    PERSONAL COMPUTERS, on the other hand....

    Well, if two-hundred million geeks alone went through 5 computers, we're already there, yet again! Why wait?

  • Quoth Ken Olsen... (Score:3, Funny)

    by jez9999 (618189) on Monday June 11 2007, @12:44PM (#19467623) Homepage Journal
    "there is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home"

  • 1 billion PCs-- the real facts (Score:3, Funny)

    by rocjoe71 (545053) on Monday June 11 2007, @01:20PM (#19468055) Homepage
    Sold: 1 billion computers:
    • Computers rotting in landfills leeching heavy metal into water table: 400 million.
    • Computers connected to the Internet: 650 million.
    • Computers that have never downloaded spam: 37.
    • Computers without pr0n on them: 5.
    • Psychological barrier?

      "Hmmmm.. This new shipment will take us over the 1B mark.."
      "Oh really? In that case I'm not sure we can manage it."
    • I'll go for more /. insightful..

      But, will those 775 run Linux?

      :-P

      • Hopefully they'll ship with a spelling and grammar checker:

        Acording [spelling] to a study published by Forrester Research, 2008 will be the year in wich [spelling] a psychological barrier will be surpassed. By the end of next year there will be 1.000.000.000 computers all [no computer is big enough to be "all around the world"] around the world [CC], a number that will double itself [superfluous "itself"] in just five more years. The reason: the [punctuation - first word after a full colon should be cap

        • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

          by nagora (177841)
          [punctuation - first word after a full colon should be capitalized]

          Certainly not the case in English English; I don't know if it's true in American English.

          • Nor in American English. Take my comment with a grain of salt, as I always got higher marks in Maths than English. Of course, being on Slashdot, that should be assumed.

    • Re:775? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by MankyD (567984) on Monday June 11 2007, @10:44AM (#19466145) Homepage
      Also, referring to 1,000,000,000 as a "psychological barrier" is kind of a strange term. It doesn't block our thought processes. Calling it a "symbolic mile-stone" might be more appropriate.

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by Ucklak (755284)
        I believe the 775 is a typo in conjunction with the FP. I assume it to mean 77%.
    • Actually, I think Microsoft will pee on their chips sometime in the near future. (They already pee on your chips and tell you it's vinegar, but I'm mixing my metaphors there.)

      Open Source OSes are going from strength to strength. The only thing Microsoft have anymore is artificial vendor lock-in (which is in breach of EU law). We know about the document formats issue, but there will come a point where the benefit of no longer being tied to Microsoft will outweigh the disadvantage of not being able to o

    • Yeah, like .001% of them maybe if you are optimistic?

      Um, no, predicting that "projects like the OLPC's one" will ship 7,750 computers is not "optimistic". Heck, predicting that OLPC alone will ship less than the

      If you want to look at the facts rather than the hype, look at the Brazilian government's recent tax breaks on computers and its commitment to making computers as universally owned as televisions

      That commitment includes participation in the OLPC project. Perhaps you ought to look at the facts.

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