While analysts have been predicting the steady decline and ultimate death of the desktop computer for some years now, those sentiments depend greatly on what one considers a 'desktop computer'.
"If you consider a desktop computer to be a tower and monitor combo, then yes, the desktop market is treading water," says Brett Bygate, Dell product manager at Tarsus Technologies.
"But, if you consider all-in-one computers part of 'desktop computing', things are just getting started," he says.
Over the past six months all-in-ones have become an area of particular interest for Tarsus resellers, since the category is proving to be a favourite with customers in both the business and the consumer markets.
"While the exact reasons aren't 100% clear, we believe it's because they take up less room on a desk than a conventional tower and external monitor combination; and utilise desktop processors, hard disks and graphics cards that deliver a noticeable improvement to the system's performance, and more importantly, a decrease in cost.
"There is also one wildcard nobody mentions," Bygate says, "and that's, of course, the integration of touch-screen hardware in modern all-in-ones - something that, in concert with the upcoming Windows 8 operating system, is predicted to transform the computing landscape."
Ironically, Bygate says, while Microsoft is driving this hard, the impact of touch won't be felt outside of the consumer world.
"While I do believe it's a differentiator and a selling point, I simply don't believe there's real value to be had in the touch world for businesses. At least not yet," he says.
"That's because there aren't any applications in the business world that demand touch and because the business market tends to be far more conservative when it comes to the adoption of new technologies, it's something that's unlikely to change in the coming year to 18 months."
While touch is ultimately something that will make its way into the business sector, it will require test cases and usage models that make sense.
"And those, quite frankly, aren't there today," he adds.
"With or without touch, I do believe the all-in-one space is due to see strong growth in the next year.
"And resellers will be well-advised to skill up on the intricacies of selling all-in-one solutions in preparation for the coming rush," he concludes.
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Tarsus Technologies
With more than 27 years' of experience in the ICT industry, Tarsus is the leading value-added distributor in South Africa, specialising in the supply of the world's foremost PC and peripheral hardware brands to the local reseller channel.
Tarsus strives to meet the channel's needs for credit funding, stock availability and efficient logistics, ensuring resellers are able to deliver the highest quality service to their customers, focus on support and compiling the best overall solutions for their end-user customer base at the lowest possible cost.
The company prides itself on its flexibility, adaptability, knowledge, skills and successful track record combined with an industry-leading ability to manage large roll-outs. These are the reasons Tarsus has consistently been rated as the top distributor in the country by international vendors, resellers and the IT media alike.
With its strong commitment to the South African channel, Tarsus is able to not only make the reseller channel more efficient, but more importantly, it plays a vital role in dramatically reducing the costs of doing business in the local ICT market.
Tarsus distributes a range of products from the world's leading manufacturers, including Acer, AOC, APC, Asus, Cisco, Dell, Gateway, HP, Lenovo, Meissner, Microsoft, OKI Printing Solutions and Samsung.
More information about Tarsus is available at: http://www.tarsus.co.za.
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