PC Sales Broke KRW 1 Billion Line

This year, PCs broke the line of KRW 1 billion after the lapse of 21 years from the active production.

According to Gartner Dataquest, the research institute specialized in the World IT firms, the production of PC broke the line of KRW 1 billion in April. Dataquest officially announced it on July 2 (USA: June 1).

Dataquest forecasted “Since IBM sold PC at the market in 1981, PC companies have grown. However, ff PC companies innovate more, its production will break KRW 2 billion line around in 2008”.

▽Lion of digital new humanity 〓As PC evolved at the rapid speed after the lapse of 20 years, it has changed the history of the human race. PC which was the high performance typewriter once, has become the base of the modern life as MS launched ‘Window 3.1’ in 1993 and the Internet is combined from 1994.

Apple Computer produced ‘PC Apple’ in 1977. But, experts said that ‘PC 5105’ of IBM in 1981 was the first of PC. Apple targeted for professionals group, but IBM could sell PC through manufacturing after paying only the royalty. Dell and Compaq joined IBM PC. Intel launched the CPU and so has developed with PC. The first PC of IBM was configured with the low-performance CPU, black-and-white monitor and MS Dos, but not hard disk. But, it was sold to over 50000 PCs for one year in USA. In 1982, it was selected as the best man of the year’ by Times instead of the man.

PC has developed to 386 and 486PC in 1990’s after XT and 286AT. As the internet appeared, PC has become the essentials of life. Since the last year, PC of Pentium 4 has been generalized and so PC has been in a center of entertainment.

▽Gloomy future 〓Sales volume of PC decreased last year since 1985, but even the expected demand seemed not good. Experts forecasted that the PC business would be recovered in the second half of the next year, but have doubts about whether PC will be a force of IT business growth again. USA that is the biggest consumer market and the first place of PC production has been in economic slump. Japan is the same as USA.

Analysis shows that PC supply already exceeded 70% in the major market and so reached to the growth limit. Experts mentioned that such as the portable PDA with wireless internet, Pocket PC and Web pad, Post PC will be substituted for PC. Many international IT companies have concentrated on the development of POST PC.

Im-Sook Ha artemes@donga.com