Apple soars as Intel bores: The post-PC world in stark contrast

San Francisco’s Moscone West conference hall and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts are just a block apart. But the psychic distance between the two is much, much greater as Intel hosts its annual Intel Developer Forum (IDF) at Moscone West and Apple (finally) launched the much-rumored iPhone 5 at Yerba Buena this week.

I’ve never been one to predict doom for either of the companies whose close alliance used to be called Wintel (Microsoft and Intel, that is) — I’m not about to start — but the curious lack of energy at IDF compared to the huge sense of excitement down the street at Apple’s event is more than symbolic.

Oddly, Intel CEO Paul Otellini is not out front at IDF, “the first time in my memory that IDF hasn’t been keynoted by an Intel CEO or COO,” says Nathan Brookwood, an analyst at Insight64, who has attended as many IDFs as anyone I know. “The contrast between the energy emanating from Yerba Buena Center and the situation here at Moscone West is stark. It’s clear where the industry’s attention is focused,” he says.

No kidding. As always, Intel has several new technological advances to tout, some pretty interesting. But unless you’re kind of a chip head or a designer of PCs, you probably haven’t given much thought to “Haswell,” the code name for a new generation of Intel’s Core CPU line. And outside of the trade press, there have been few, if any, rumors about what the future according to Intel will look like. (You can see Intel’s “Haswell” demonstration on YouTube.)

The world according to Otellini

Contrast that muted interest for “Haswell” to the months and months of rumors about the iPhone 5 and the iPad Mini. Indeed, the rumor cyclone surrounding those products was so strong that it actually reduced sales of the existing iPhone as customers held off on purchases in anticipation. And Microsoft’s decision to build the Surface tablet by itself, instead of following its usual practice of letting the PC makers manufacture significant products, is emblematic of the fear, doubt, and confusion taking hold in the PC ecosystem.

I don’t know if one should read too much into Otellini’s absence from the big stage, but something he said during a recent interview was astonishingly out of sync with the tech world of 2012. Here’s the exchange between Otellini and a reporter from our sister publication PC World:

PC World: “How do you react when people say we’re in a post-PC era? Can desktops and notebooks survive in a smartphone and tablet world?”

Otellini: “I don’t think there is a tablet- or phone-centric world. My view is we live in a personal computing-centric world.”

Excuse me? It’s one thing to say that laptops, desktops, and Windows will be around for some time — they will. But to pretend the world still revolves around that decades-old model smacks of sticking one’s head in the sand.

At least Intel’s CTO seems more aware of reality: Justin Rattner told our sister publication Computerworld that the PC industry needs to step up with new technology to reignite passion for the PC, if it wants the industry to continue. Rattner cited touch capabilities — ironically, what perhaps most distinguished the iPhone and iPad from PCs — as a technology the PC industry could use to regain momentum, such as with Windows 8.

One billion smartphones by 2016

Consider this: NPD Display Search this week released its smartphone forecast. By 2016, cumulative shipments will pass the 1 billion mark. The overall volume is impressive, but so is the growth rate, a near doubling from expected shipments this year of a bit more than 500 million. Looking at NPD’s chart, I’m also struck by the smoothness of the growth curve, as I’m always suspicious of analysts who predict hockey-stick growth. NPD is not doing that, which gives me more confidence in the forecast. To be clear, the vast majority of the shipments in 2016 will be replacements for existing smartphones, but that still speaks to the firm hold the smartphone has on the public.

Even if that forecast is too bullish, contrast it with the very, very slow growth in the PC market. “In the second quarter of 2012, the PC market suffered through its seventh consecutive quarter of flat to single-digit growth,” says Gartner analyst Mikako Kitagawa. To be clear, that’s seven straight quarters.

What’s more, sales of Ultrabooks, Intel’s answer to the tablet revolution, have been slow, though Otellini maintains they’ve met expectations — numbers he declined to specify. Just last week, Intel told Wall Street that slower than expected PC sales will cut its revenue by $1 billion in the third quarter of the year. Sure, some of that is probably a result of PC vendors trying to lower inventory ahead of the Windows 8 launch, but that’s not a good sign, to say the least.

Meanwhile, that next iteration of Windows has received a reception that varies from lukewarm to downright hostile. (Can you say “Windows Frankenstein“?) It will, of course, sell. People are still buying PCs and the software to run on them. But I have yet to meet a user who’s excited by the prospect. Indeed, people I know who’ve purchased laptops recently say they wanted to get a good deal on a Windows 7 machine and were afraid if they waited, they’d be stuck having to buy a Windows 8 PC. (Good news: You can buy Windows 7 for at least two more years.)

Stuck — contrast that to people who own iPhones or other smartphones and how excited they are at the prospect of buying an iPhone 5. Head down to the Apple Store near Union Square here in San Francisco when the iPhone 5 goes on sale on Sept. 21. Then go to Best Buy the day Windows 8 PCs hit the shelves and tell me that we live in a personal computing-centric world.