On Second Thoughts, Africa’s Tablet Computing Boom is Inevitable

The proliferation of mobile based internet access and the evolution of traditional broadband services from niched to mainstream products, is transforming developing economies and their place in the knowledge economy. In the developed world, the death of the  consumer PC segment is now almost complete.

HP’s disposal of its PC division to concentrate on cloud and enterprise based services is probably the most significant confirmation of where ICT is going, the company was after all the biggest PC producer in the world. Within the next five years very few pc’s will be purchased for consumer usage, a significant number of SMEs might also not invest in desktop computers.

Where Tablet computing is concerned, Apple’s iPad ushered in an era that bridged the cellphone and the computer. It did not invent the tablet PC in the same manner it did not invent the smartphone through its iPhone, however it did make both segments cool enough for mainstream adoption. This in my opinion is the most significant occurrence to happen in the last five years of ICTs.