Reports of the death of the personal computer have been greatly exaggerated, according to dpa. So said Microsoft boss Steve Ballmer on Thursday, two days after his great rival Apple chief executive Steve Jobs predicted that the era of the personal computer was coming to an end, to be replaced by tablets and other mobile devices that bring touch-screen convenience to internet searches and other computer functions. Like Jobs, Ballmer offered his analysis at the All Things Digital Conference in southern California, where he argued that tablet computers and even smartphones are essentially PCs in a different shape and form. "I think people are going to be using PCs in greater and greater numbers for many years to come," Ballmer said, adding that the new generations of PCs will come in multiple shapes and sizes: with or without keyboards, touch screens and other features, small enough to fit in your pocket, or large enough to serve as living room TV sets. "The PC as we know it will continue to morph form factor," he said. "The real question is what you do with it." Ballmer acknowledged that this transition to multiple configurations represented a challenge to Microsoft, whose dominance in operating systems and productivity software has been built on traditional desktop and laptop PCs. But he argued that Microsoft was well-placed to take advantage of the demand for new kinds of computers by adapting its venerable Windows operating system. "There is nothing bad for us in the trend" toward cloud computing, he said. "But it is a transition. Transitions are times of potential tumult." He added: "We need to work smarter, work harder and be more vigilant. Absolutely. We're moving from a world that's fundamentally good for us to a world that's even better."
