In the early 1990s, I carried an Apple Macintosh to my summer job in the morning and took it back home in the evenings. It even had a cute, blue carry case that had straps like a backpack. I called it my "Mac pack."
What made it so important that I carry this 25lb computer to work? PageMaker and Quark. I was laying out book manuscripts and those were the tools I needed to get the task accomplished. The software applications made the machine.
Why didn’t I just leave that huge computer at work? Because I went to the office during standard work hours and worked at home in the evenings. Deadlines helped that along.
Fifteen years later this behavior of carrying around a computer doesn’t seem odd at all. Luckily, today’s PCs are designed for a mobile workstyle and are even blending in to lifestyle better.
Residuals of the old burden still exist though. We still call a fixed PC a "desktop" and a PC that moves around a mobile PC, laptop, notebook, desktop replacement, transportable, desknote, subnotebook, Tablet PC, ultra-portable PC, thin-and-light, ultra-mobile PC,
ultra-mobile device, and I’m sure there will be plenty of more category names headed our way. Let alone form factors, such as slates, convertibles, and clamshells.
Being able to move around with a PC has been a major differentiator. It makes sense that we have a large crop of names popping up for these mobile PCs. But as mobile moves beyond where we are today to an expected design feature, what name will we pick? Will we cling to the past as many still are by using the 1980s term "laptop"? Will we start using target audience, location or use based names? Create nonsense words?
Perhaps target audience will get some traction, as we see products like OLPC and Classmate PC come to market. A clear message that these PCs are for students while they are in school and not for field sales people.
Use-based names may work, with the installed applications helping to define the PC name. Then again, "Media Center" PC could be a 2′ steel tower with very loud fans or it could be a 1.5lb ultra-mobile PC. Ah, there I go using fixed versus mobile comparison again. 🙂
What are your nominations for best category name of future PCs?