Source: Data compiled by H. Dediu and J. Reiner.

Diffusion of Personal Computing Devices, 1977-2011

Personal computing devices, enabling its user to execute customizable programs, started to become available in the late 1970s and became mass market products by the mid 1980s. By 2011, more than 335 million PC platform devices alone were being sold around the world. The diffusion of personal computing undertook three distinct phases:

• The setting of standards. By the late 1970s several different platforms using different standards and operating systems were being introduced. Interoperability was close to be nonexistent, implying that each platform required its own hardware and software. The main contenders were Apple (Apple II), Commodore (64 and Amiga), Atari (400/800) and Tandy (TRS-80).The introduction of the IBM PC in 1981 marked the downfall of competing standards with the adoption of the MSDOS operating system from which the PC platform would evolve. In 1984 MacOS, the first graphical user interface available for a home computer, would carve a niche on which the Macintosh platform would evolve. By the late 1980s, non PC and MacOS devices were disappearing from the market.
• Performance, interface and interconnectivity. From 1985, the two prevailing platforms, with the PC dominating (selling 8 to 10 times more platforms than Macintosh), undertook a massive diffusion in the consumer and corporate markets. Performance in terms of processing, memory and storage capacity was growing exponentially (Moore's law) while costs were declining. Graphical user interfaces were standard (e.g. Windows), enabling users to operate complex applications in a relatively easy fashion. By the late 1990s the development of the Internet opened an entirely new range of services to personal computing devices, such as telecommunications (e.g. email), ecommerce, information access and entertainment. Portable computing devices (laptops) also became widely available.
• Mobile computing. By 2005, cellular phones, which emerged as mass market products in the mid 1990s, saw their integration with features that were previously only available to desktop and laptop computers or to specialized devices such as digital cameras or global positioning system receivers. The cellular phone evolved from being solely a telecommunication device (with basic features such as an address book, a clock and a calendar) to a true mobile personal computing device offering a wide range of customizable features (apps). The most salient are Symbian (Nokia), Blackberry, iPhone and Android platforms. Their massive diffusion was helped by the ubiquity of wireless networks in developed and developing countries alike. With the introduction of the iPad in 2010, new forms of personal portable computing devices became available which created new niches (e.g. ebooks) that are more complementing than competing with conventional personal computing devices such as the PC.

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