Coming back? Where did they go? When did they arrive? I don't think there was ever a time where the PC enjoyed significant market saturation. If anything, the PC "bubble" is deflating back down to normal levels.
It may be popular and "obvious" to accept that Intel and Microsoft own the PC market and decide where it goes, but the reality is that the market makes the demands and Intel either meets them or they don't. I think this is clear when AMD pushed 64 bit first and Intel adopted it. This is also illustrated with the fact that PC sales have declined along with the stagnation of Moore's Law. That last point seems counter-intuitive but it shows that Intel can't force a market if it doesn't deliver.
Now both CPUs and GPUs are "as fast as they're going to be" for some time now. For some reason, next gen GPUs are joining the theoretical ranks of "Moore's Law is more threat to economics and security than fruit of civilization," giving us 10% yoy speed improvements but doubling up on security and management overhead, added coupling, APIs for compilers only, dedicating more silicon to hypervisors and management that should go to the programmer and his compiler.
IT has become a completely dysfunctional market at the macroscale. The demand doesn't know what they want or how to shop for it, and the supply is to scared to deliver anything new.
At the micro-level, those who know what they want are still taking it one step at a time with their own feet, to their own drummer, but the mess that is the macro-market is just destroying knowledge and value like a wildfire. However, those few programmers who know what the Internet should look like, instead of one that's built to be profitable for thing manufactures, aren't able to keep up with the complete mess big software is doing to the collective wisdom of the netizens and the internet infrastructure, both physical and social.
It may be popular and "obvious" to accept that Intel and Microsoft own the PC market and decide where it goes, but the reality is that the market makes the demands and Intel either meets them or they don't. I think this is clear when AMD pushed 64 bit first and Intel adopted it. This is also illustrated with the fact that PC sales have declined along with the stagnation of Moore's Law. That last point seems counter-intuitive but it shows that Intel can't force a market if it doesn't deliver.
Now both CPUs and GPUs are "as fast as they're going to be" for some time now. For some reason, next gen GPUs are joining the theoretical ranks of "Moore's Law is more threat to economics and security than fruit of civilization," giving us 10% yoy speed improvements but doubling up on security and management overhead, added coupling, APIs for compilers only, dedicating more silicon to hypervisors and management that should go to the programmer and his compiler.
IT has become a completely dysfunctional market at the macroscale. The demand doesn't know what they want or how to shop for it, and the supply is to scared to deliver anything new.
At the micro-level, those who know what they want are still taking it one step at a time with their own feet, to their own drummer, but the mess that is the macro-market is just destroying knowledge and value like a wildfire. However, those few programmers who know what the Internet should look like, instead of one that's built to be profitable for thing manufactures, aren't able to keep up with the complete mess big software is doing to the collective wisdom of the netizens and the internet infrastructure, both physical and social.