ZDNet has once again declared that the PC is dead. They claim that with the introduction of the Metro UI in Windows 8 that the traditional desktop PC is dead. One question I have, though: without the traditional use of the mouse and keyboard and only using a touch interface, how will working with Excel, Visual Studio, databases or Photoshop be efficient? It can’t with the low DPI resolution of a finger compared to the high resolution of a mouse. I can use a touchscreen keyboard fairly well, but there is no way I could reach my 80+ WPM that I can on a physical keyboard. I won’t even go into ergonomics…

Death of the PC? No. Maybe the death of the old Windows desktop. But, of course, that is the evolution of the OS. I also doubt that Intel will give up to ARM without a fight.

Now that I’ve seen Microsoft’s next-generation Windows desktop systems architecture, it’s become very apparent that Metro fits quite well into the Post-PC vision that I described earlier. It would be entirely possible for a “PC” to be built entirely without Intel legacy architecture, based on the new “Green” foundation.

Within several years, the Wintel architecture on the desktop is going to cease to exist. Microsoft has not issued a timeframe for when this transition is going to occur, but I suspect it will happen within two consecutive versions of the OS. That’s certainly within the scope of ten years or less.