In the past 28 years, the industry has changed dramatically. The PC revolution essentially began in January 1975 when MITS began selling the Altair 8800. The Altair kit sold for $421 (about £286), or $621 assembled. At the time, AMC's Gremlin automobile had just completed its most successful year and Captain Beefhart and the Magical Band were in the middle of their Bongo Fury tour. Technically, home PCs go back to the Simon, a mechanical brain that could be built out of commonly available parts. But the Altair was the first commercially successful PC. Other machines rapidly followed from companies such as Zenith, Apple Computer, Northgate, Zeos and Commodore. All these companies once ranked as "top five" PC manufacturers, according to Gartner. Only Apple is still prominent, ranking as the ninth-largest manufacturer in 2001. While the PC was primarily sold to consumers at first, shipments shot up dramatically, from 609,000 to 1.6 million, in 1981 with the release of the IBM PC, the first PC successfully targeted at the business market. Double-digit growth in shipments remained common for 20 years. In only two years -- 1985 and 2001 -- have shipments declined. Although more gradual growth is expected in the future, double-digit growth could return if upgrade cycles, economic conditions and developing nations synchronise at some point, Reynolds wrote. There are bumps on the road to continued growth, though. Demand will likely slacken if existing carriers attempt to throttle broadband deployment. Telecommunications carriers in some regions of the world want to retain the minutes-per-use business model and dread the flat-rate pricing of broadband systems, according to Gartner. Because existing carriers are often backed by the government, or at the least are politically well connected, ill-chosen regulations could hinder proliferation. Similarly, content-protection schemes that erode hardware performance could hinder demand by making PCs less versatile. Also, even though prices have drastically dropped for years, PCs are still too expensive for the developing world. "This (pricing) will be the greatest challenge for the industry during the next five years," Reynolds wrote.
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