Sometime next year the 1 billionth PC will be purchased, installed and put into use by some lucky person who will then proceed to waste the next several weeks trying to remove the zero day malware from his hard drive. Five years later, another billion computers should be making the lives of men and women more complicated across the globe.

Forrester Research is set to release its projections on PC growth through 2015. As it turns out, the majority of PC growth in the next decade will be driven from the developing world. In fact, about 775 Million of the next billion PCs sold will come from countries like Russia, Brazil, India and China.

A Growth Industry

This isn’t at all surprising when one takes into account the veritable explosion in growth of the IT industry in these countries. As outsourcing of IT jobs continues to rise, the need for computing hardware in these nations will expand to meet these needs.

The markets that currently make up the brunt of that first billion (the United States and Europe) have already been saturated by computing hardware. As a result, the overall need for new computers will only increase marginally.

This is good news for the hardware retailers who make the majority of their money selling to those who have never owned a PC before. There is, however, the element of unpredictability that is always present when moving into a new market. As growth increases, hardware manufacturers will have to learn to tailor production for these regions.

Web 2.0 Roundup

A few additional factors that will help to drive adoption of PCs in the developing world are programs like the $100 Laptop and an increase in corporate infrastructure being moved overseas. It will be interesting to see what changes we say as the landscape of the connected world continues to expand.

[Picture credit goes to Eole]