The era of the desktop personal computer is beginning to fade as society hurtles toward a future of interactive, personalized computing devices that will rapidly change the way we live and communicate, predicts a leading technology expert.

Terry Retter, a director in the Strategic Technology Services group at the PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP’s Technology Centre in Menlo Park, Calif., gave Calgary business leaders a tantalizing glimpse into the emerging wireless world at a recent venture forum sponsored by the Calgary Enterprise Forum Society.

But despite the massive advances in technology over the past few years, don’t call it a computer or business revolution, Retter advises.

“I think we’re in an evolution that really started a long time ago,” says Retter, noting headlines 30 years ago trumpeted the same theme.

Retter referred to Technology Forecast: 2000, a major technology study on emerging trends and new products released earlier this year by PricewaterhouseCoopers, which showed that personal devices are overtaking the traditional PC. The trend to moving away from desktop computers to new computing devices and platforms goes hand in hand with the trend away from wired communications to wireless, he adds.

“We’re now at the stage where we believe the personal computer has peaked . . . and is being replaced in its dominance by devices,” said Retter, who was a contributing editor to the annual study.

“I’m not saying the PC is dead,” he added quickly. “It’s going to continue for a long time . . . But this year or next year we will sell more Internet-connected devices than we sell Internet-connected PCs. You’ll see the software business begin to change.”

According to Alberta Economic Development, Alberta has the highest proportion of households in Canada making regular use of the Internet (45%). It also has the highest rate of households with computers (63%), telephones (99%) and cellular phones (51%).

But David Antoniuk, director of Electronics with Alberta Innovation and Science, argues that wireless technology isn’t even close to replacing what can be done on a PC.

“The handheld stuff definitely has a future, it’s going to be big,” he agrees. “But there’s no way I’m going to be trying to do the kind of work I do on a PC on a wireless. The keyboards are too small . . . physically you cannot do the things you want to do. It’s not convenient, and you’ll get eye strain. It’s bad enough on a big monitor.

“Fibre to the home will have probably a bigger impact for most North Americans because you’ll have unlimited bandwidth, unlimited movies and Internet capability — a million times faster or better than anything you can do with wireless.”

The PricewaterhouseCoopers technology report paints a picture of an Internet-enabled future where computers are so ubiquitous they are almost unnoticed — from accessing your e-mail from your Web-equipped car to having in-home consumer devices such as a refrigerator computer which can download an exotic recipe from the Web, order needed ingredients for it from an online grocery supplier and provide a video showing how the dish is prepared.

Increased security will be in greater demand with the exchange of personal and financial information over the Internet, which Retter says could further push the development of biometric tools like thumb readers on cell phones, or face scanners to positively identify users.

As consumers adapt to this high-tech Brave New World, so must business, Retter believes — and the knowledge must trickle down all the way to the shop floor for companies to remain competitive.

“We have this widening gap between the technology component of jobs and the understanding of technology by the workforce,” he says. “We’re seeing companies start to consider putting educational services in place, not as a perk but as a mandatory effort to train and educate their people.”

The next meeting of the Calgary Enterprise Forum Society will be held Nov. 15th.

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