Early signs of changing winds in the Personal Computing Industry

Its 2015. I see winds of change for the desktop computing platform. The mobile computing platform (ARM based) is continuing with its stranglehold in the mobile computing pace while Intel & AMD continue to operate in a relatively declining desktop consumer market. But what is not obvious immediately is the quiet entry of ARM based devices as entry level PC hopefuls just as Intel and others are trying to shrink the PC with their MiniPC and NUC efforts. 

Today smartphones are coming out with 2 Ghz+ Quad core or 8-core devices with the ARM architecture, coupled with 4 GB RAM. While by no stretch of imagination these can beat Intel or AMD CPUs in raw performance, the fact of matter is that many users DO NOT need all the x86 compute power, atleast NOT ALL the time.  You can see this with the prevalence of thin clients in office environments (large & small). Even at the consumer end, if you measure the average CPU usage of your PC over time it might be less than 10% with a typical peak between 30-50%. So lets do a rough comparison of an Intel based x86 running an entry level Core i3 m/c and  raspberry Pi 2 Single Board computer running an ARMv7 chip with 1 GB slow RAM and flash storage.

1. CAPEX - The raspberry pi m/c (minus LED screen, keyboard and mouse but loaded with Wifi, case, PSU, Fast microSDHC card)  will be around $60. The PC (cabinet+PSU+Mobo+CPU) will be around $350 without peripherals. That's a 6 times difference and you will get only 2 cores in the Intel PC Setup. For sake of simplification i assume we run a linux distro (like Ubuntu) on both.
2. OPEX - The PC's OPEX is power. A raspberry pi uses about 3-4W (10W is theoretical max based on PSU input power and 100% efficiency) of current on average while the PC with a bare-bones 250W SMPS will use around 120W in idle state. That's a differential of 30-40 times. that means even if the raspberry pi is kept on 24x7x365, it will consume 35KW of power  per year (or probably Rs. 200 per year) with PC coming in at 30-40 times this number.
3. Software - A raspberry pi 2 with its 1 Ghz quad core CPU, 1 GB RAM and 32 GB flash and Wifi/Ethernet will most likely be able to handle all content consumption tasks [browsing, email, social networking, chat, Audio-Video streaming (including 1080p) and playback]. And it will be able to do basic content creation task like image editing, blogging, word processing) etc decently. The only drawback of the Raspberry pi system would be heavy weight content creation like bulk image processing, video editing, heavy games, 3D graphics & visualization) and so on which anyways MOST consumers do not engage in on a routine (if at all) basis. Today the linux ecosystem has developed to an extent where it can compete well for basic work in point 93) with any Windows application or in other words it can satisfy the most common need. Even so, the desktop application load times are a little too much for comfirt, though after loading many work fine as long as they work in memory.
4. Storage & Distribution Trends - Flash storage is now generally preferred over magnetic disk storage because of performance benefits. It includes flash cards, flash drives and SSDs which generally occupy less power and footprint than 3.5" HDDs. Optical media was earlier used to distribute content, but now on demand downloads, streaming  (multimedia) and USB pen drives have replaced them in the age of net enabled devices, rendering them almost obsolete. Both HDDs and Optical drives are archival storage mediums, not working storage areas which then are addon peripherals to be connected on demand and therefore outside the core PC.
5. Graphics capability - While their is a place of Discrete Graphics (GPU), Integrated graphics or graphics chip on main motherboard have evolved to a point where they can handle common user activity with ease. Only for the more intense graphics, 3D, Gaming and massively parallel applications do discrete Graphics provide any perceivable benefit. Most users anyways do not indulge in these.
6. HDMI - The integration of sound with display by means of an HDMI port, have eliminated the need of integrated or discrete sound cards. More so in the age when speakers are getting integrated in display monitors. A similar trend is integration of webcam in monitors connected to the PC using USB interface. All this again means reduction of ports and motherboard circuitry.

All the above have combined to create a disruptive shockwave in the PC space. We must change our thinking of what a PC is. And with increasing volumes, core counts and performance of ARM based SOCs in mobile devices, The cost is going down and the performance is improving at a given price point. 

The PC (with it Intel & Microsoft) is thus being presented with a big challenge in the form of the Raspberry Pis, Odroid C1s along with the Linux Operating system. increasing mobile device sales are driving down cost and increasing capabilities (The pi 2 is 6 times as powerful as the previous generation !!!) in the ARM ecosystem. Again its easy to wash it off by saying that for a PC you necessarily need windows OS, Graphics cards, Sound cards, etc but for an entry level system this assertion may not be universally true. This opens a market for ARM based PCs.

I would not be surprised if we would see a  2-3 Ghz Raspberry pi with 8 cores and powerful GPU in 3 -5 years  time, which can make the PC completely redundant like mainframes were done in by PCs in the last century. Most applications are anyway getting redesigned for multi-core rather than clock speed scale-up. Currently speed is a gap everywhere. The RAM is slower in SBcs and most boot and operate with SD cards which lag HDDs and SSDs way behind in performance (Even on linux of not the boot up time, the application load time ofd heavy applications like Browser, Libreoffice, Gimp, etc is just too much. But once they load and work in memory they are reasonably useful). But time may fix this  sooner than we expect.  And all this at $35 for the board and almost free for the software ;-)) 

And its also possible that mobiles and tablets will morph into the PC chassis with strong content creation and consumption capabilities.  In either case it means turbulent times for x86/x64 platform (and along with it Intel & Microsoft). The Intel x86 & windows platform PC is getting pushed into a Niche by ARM & Linux just the Wintel combine pushed UNIX and UNIX pushed mainframes during their dawn.

Prove me wrong Wintel !!!