The Personal Computer, Past, Present and Future The Personal Computer Past, Present and Future 2017/18 By Peter Farwell 1 The Personal Computer, Past, Present and Future Author’s Biography Peter Farwell Is a Chartered Professional Accountant and Certified Financial Analyst. He is uniquely positioned to write The Personal Computer, Past, Present and Future. Peter was an early purchaser of an Apple II and an avid user of VisiCalc. He is a retired partner of Public Accounting Firm Ernst & Young. He was the leader of the Canadian Firm’s services to the High Technology Industry for fourteen years. Peter was the co-author of several studies of the Canadian High Technology Industry. These included a study of trends in the Canadian Software Industry, conducted by interviewing 12 of the CEO’s of Canada’s leading Software companies. He coordinated the Canadian Electronic Industry’s participation in a four country, four industry study of Total Quality Management practices. 2 Peter has written articles and given speeches on aspects of Strategic Planning and Financing for High Technology companies. These included a lecture to the Association of Canadian Venture Capital Companies on the six stages of growth of technology companies, based on a 1972 landmark paper on the subject by Professor Greiner of Harvard University. Recently, in 2012 and 2013, he has coauthored three studies of Research In Motion that endeavor to determine its chances of survival and what changes management have to make to do so. 3 The Personal Computer, Past, Present and Future 4 The Personal Computer, Past, Present and Future Introduction This is a book about the Personal Computer, Its Past from 1975 to 2011, Its Present from 2011 to 2017 and its Future from 2018 . The Past The Personal Computer’s past is taken primarily from my previous book: A Short History of the Personal Computer, published in 2013 and available on Amazon.com. It focusses on the growth in global sales volume from its inception in 1975 to the peak in its sales volume in 2011. In A Short History of the Personal Computer, our story stressed the importance of the sequence of Applications Software created for the PC. We believe it was this sequence of software innovations that was the key driver of the popularity of the PC, and led it to increasing sales, time and again, over the PC’s 36-year history from 1975 to 2011. However, none of this success would have been possible without two linked series of computer innovations that provided the platform for the series of application software that we have highlighted in this book: (1) The developments of the microprocessor hardware, led by Noyce, Moore and Groves at Intel; and (2) The development of the PC Operating Systems, led by Bill Gates and Paul Allen at Microsoft. Because of the Importance of these innovations to the success of the Personal Computer, in this book, we have included a review of the history of both the PC hardware and the PC software in an Appendix, Appendix F. The Personal Computer, Past, Present and Future The Present A Short History of the Personal Computer was published using Amazon’s Create Space publishing system in the fall of 2013. At that time, we concluded by observing that in 2011 and 2012 there was evidence of a peaking in global PC sales in 2011 at 365 million units. In 2017, we can see that this peaking has occurred and indeed we are now in a period of precipitous decline in global PC Sales. We have added a section describing the continuity of PC global Sales from 2007 to 2017. It includes some elaboration on comments in A Short History of the Personal Computer on the causes of the decline in PC sales after 2011, which we attribute to (1) the arrival of the Smartphone that took away much of the PC’s function as the primary digital communication device for internet users; (2) the lengthening of the PC replacement cycle, and (3) The lack of another mega App. In this book we elaborate on 5 these causes of the PC’s decline. 6 The Personal Computer, Past, Present and Future The Future Looking to the future, we explore possible sources of renewed growth in overall PC sales. We conclude with a list of positive things to watch for that might indicate a halting of the slide in PC sales and growth in the future. 7 The Personal Computer, Past, Present and Future 8 Table of Contents The Past .............................................................................................................................. 5 The Present ........................................................................................................................ 5 The Future .......................................................................................................................... 7 The Past ............................................................................................................................ 11 Introduction to the Past History of the Personal Computer ........................................................................................................ 11 Apple Computers ............................................................................................................ 12 The Apple I ....................................................................................................................... 12 The Apple II ...................................................................................................................... 14 VisiCalc ............................................................................................................................. 16 Mike Markkula’s contributions ........................................................................................ 22 Wozniak’s Graphics Capability ......................................................................................... 26 The IBM PC ........................................................................................................................ 31 IBM’s Personal Computer series ...................................................................................... 32 “The IBM PC” .................................................................................................................... 36 Word Processing Software ......................................................................................... 42 The EasyWriter ................................................................................................................. 42 WordStar .......................................................................................................................... 43 WordPerfect ..................................................................................................................... 45 Word ................................................................................................................................ 51 The Graphic User Interface (GUI)............................................................................. 54 The Next Great Leap Forward ................................................................................... 59 Dell Computers ................................................................................................................ 59 The Internet and World Wide Web ......................................................................... 69 The Internet Standards (Protocols) .................................................................................. 75 E-mail .................................................................................................................................. 84 Dell revisited .................................................................................................................... 66 8 Three Headwinds ........................................................................................................... 70 Three Tailwinds .............................................................................................................. 73 The World Wide Web (“WWW”) ..................................................................................... 73 The Web Browser ............................................................................................................. 75 Search Engines ................................................................................................................. 77 E-commerce ..................................................................................................................... 77 Amazon.com .................................................................................................................... 79 Facebook .......................................................................................................................... 87 Blogging ............................................................................................................................ 91 Twitter and Micro blogging .............................................................................................. 84 LinkedIn ............................................................................................................................ 86 YouTube ........................................................................................................................... 90 Skype ................................................................................................................................ 92 Other Social media ........................................................................................................... 89 The Present