Apple : King of Post-PC era; Top PC-maker for Q4 2011

The beauty of iPad and the genius of Apple is : It isn’t just the tablet makers which are concerned.

The PC makers like Dell and HP should be really really concerned. Apple is now the official king of Post-PC era. Of course it’s the company which defined and ushered the Post-PC era. Apple has sold 172 million Post-PC devcies in 2011 and these devices account for 76% of the revenues.

What are post-PC devices?

iPod, iPhone and the iPad. The PC is now reduced to a mere accessory for the most part. It’s just the content producers, bloggers, keyboard ninjas, programmers and those who can’t afford an iPad which are really using the PC.

For the rest, iPad would just do fine. Emails, browsing, social networking or taking and editing pictures, iPad can do all that. With iCloud integration, Apple has taken the penultimate step towards discounting PC to a dumb terminal.

If iPod and iPhone are the smaller and limited versions of a Post-PC device, iPad is THE post-PC device. And Apple sold 15.4 million of them last quarter. What’s the big deal about that statistic? Take a look at this picture.

Yeah baby! It really doesn’t matter if HP and Dell want to get out of tablet business or not. Apple has just beat them in their own game with a device which is hardly 2 years old. Remember that Apple didn’t count the Macs as Personal computers. That would make Apple even taller.

Q2 of 2012 would further Apple’s lead in the PC market. First there is the new iPad which is launched which goes on sales from March 16, 2012. Second, iPad 2 is $100 cheaper. It might be an older model but still a worthy model. May be worthy isn’t a right word because, for most of us, iPad 2 is all that is needed.

The purists can argue all they want about iPad being a Post-PC device or if there is such a thing called as post-PC device. Any debate about “if and when” of iPad would be moot because the ship has sailed.

Take it as a new category or an existing category, iPad is here to stay, people are buying it and most importantly Apple is making truck loads of money from it. And none of the manufacturers – PC or otherwise – seems to have an answer to iPad.

With the new iPad, Apple just leapt ahead of the competition. Geez! it packs 264 pixels per inch, runs for 10 hours and is fast enough or faster than any tablets out there. How could you not buy it?