PCs, tablets will continue to coexist

Despite the continued insistence that the world is moving toward a "post-PC era," a report from technology news provider TG Daily notes that another scenario will take hold as tablet computers become more popular.

Industry analyst Jack Gold says it's more likely that desktop and laptop PCs and tablets will coexist and complement each other, rather than the latter completely replacing the former. The two form factors will "meet in the middle," the report states.

"This is especially true of notebooks, which have become the majority PC form factor," Gold says, according to TG Daily.

At the moment, tablets are used primarily for information and media consumption, while PCs tend to handle more complex tasks, Gold says. That will change as a hybrid form factor emerges, melding the two technologies into a single device.

A February 2012 report from research firm Canalys offers further evidence that the PC market will remain strong for the foreseeable future. The study reveals that PC sales increased more than 16 percent during the fourth quarter of 2011, despite the flooding in Thailand that disrupted the global supply chain.