Ben Bajarin:

I’m still as bullish as ever on the tablet’s potential. However, my concern is consumers may be extremely stubborn and lean heavily on past behavior and familiarity with PCs instead of going through the process to replicate the workflows and activities they did on their PCs and transition to tablets

My concern is not that at all. As Bajarin mentions, the buying cycle for computers is shifting to 6 years — and anecdotally that feels about right. I think this is driven by the smart phone.

General consumers seem to see and use their smartphone for almost all their computing needs — and that means they want a “real computer” which they feel confident can handle any other task. They don’t have that confidence in a tablet just yet.

This is what is driving slowing sales of iPads/tablets. It’s not that the PC is better competing with a tablet, it’s that for many people they don’t see the value in a tablet which is essentially a bigger screen phone — they love their phones and want a new one every year. For most people that means they cannot afford a phone + tablet + PC (even if the buying cycle is 6 years) and there is no way they are giving up their phones.