Are we close to the end of the PC era?
No. Just because there are a proliferation of other devices doesn’t mean the PC is dead. Rather the PC now is joined at the ‘edge’ with mobile, tablets, etc. in a world of edge device diversity. The dirge for PC is like the claims of the end of the web. Not quite, a simple model of singular access is replaced by diversity, interfaces get richer and more diverse.
The “client-server” era is getting displaced by the cloud operating model. This will massively disrupt enterprise IT (which gets disrupted all the time, so maybe nothing new there). Cloud/mobile and cloud/PC is the new client/server. So the PC may survive longer than a local department-level database might.
Also, I wonder if the tablet, which had some abortive runs pre-iPad success, will become a fad. A tablet buys you a touch interface and protability, but lacks interfaces and capabilities; it’s a consumer device, not a pro-sumer device. The great thing about smartphones is that they replaced multiple devices (maps/Garmin, PDA, cell phone). If you own a laptop, a tablet becomes ‘yet another device’, as any tablet owner will still need a PC or laptop. An SSD-based laptop (think MacBook Air) has far more power than a tablet with fewer compromises in form factor. Add a touch interface to the laptop (earlier laptops tried that but didnt take off) and cut its price, and you have no compromises. I have a convenient 500GB USB-pluggable hard drive. Add that to your laptop config and you are ‘done’. The SSD-based laptop may become the ‘new PC’, and it will be useful for some time to come.