The World According to Mitch

The official birthday of the IBM PC is August 12, 1981. Today, on the 30th birthday of that (at the time less than auspicious) event, there are some who believe the era of the personal computer is behind us, with the advent of tablets and smartphones.

I disagree… that may be true for a segment of the population, but the majority of computer workers – the Information Workers – will be working with a keyboard, mouse, and monitor for years to come. Sure, those computers may become more portable (how many of you remember how heavy the first PCs were?), but they are still PCs… including the three very different ones I have here – my 9″ netbook, my 12″ convertible Tablet, and my 15″ laptop.

The PC era has seen a lot of big moves in the world of IT… starting with the rise of Microsoft, the death and then rebirth of IBM, the cloud (including you too, Google!), the death and rebirth of Apple (although chiefly not a PC company, they once were!).

Thirty years in our industry is a hundred lifetimes. I look forward to witnessing, participating in, and in a very small way helping to shape the next 30 years of the IT world.

Thanks IBM! You may not have done it by yourself (and you certainly suffered from it), but none of this would have happenned without you!