Laptop to be top dog

The desktop PC is being pushed to the scrap heap by its smaller, nimbler sibling, the laptop. They've been around since the early 1980s, but portable computers are finally taking over. Last year, U.S. laptop sales rose 21 per cent to 31.6 million, while desktop sales slumped nearly four per cent to 35 million. Overall, laptops are still underdogs, but they're expected to account for the majority of U.S. computer sales in 2008 and of worldwide sales in 2009.

By 2011, research company IDC expects portable computers to comprise 66 per cent of all corporate PCs sold, up from 40 per cent in 2006, and 71 per cent of all consumer PCs sold, up from 44 per cent.



Meanwhile laptops are creating new social norms and rules of etiquette. At Ritual Coffee Roasters cafe, a mecca for laptop users in San Francisco, owner Eileen Hassi hired an electrician last spring to disable the electrical outlets. Regulars were spending so much time riding the free wireless network -- as many as eight hours at a stretch -- that patrons who wanted simply to sip their lattes couldn't find seats. You're welcome to work on your laptop here, Hassi explained, "until your battery dies."

Source: canada.com