If there's a notch on the technology timeline demarcating the PC and post-PC eras, we might have just crossed it.
Hewlett-Packard on Thursday effectively announced it was done with the personal computer, extending a crazy week in tech news that saw Google double down on mobile devices with its enormous bid for a Motorola division.
HP, a storied brand that was instrumental in expanding the PC industry, announced that its board had authorized exploring "strategic alternatives" for its computer division. That's corporate speak for a sale or spin-off.
The Palo Alto tech giant and the industry as a whole have seen a drop-off in laptop and desktop sales and margins, as consumers shift to tablets and smart phones.
And yet ... HP also announced plans to discontinue the phones and tablets based on the operating system it acquired through its now clearly ill-fated $1.2 billion purchase of Palm last year. That means it's pulling the plug on its highly promoted TouchPad tablet, less than two months after it hit the market.
The news underscores two critical points about the state of the technology industry:
First, we're rapidly moving into a world where consumer demand for mobile devices is outstripping that for PCs, dampening business prospects for the sector.
Think about it this way: HP, the largest PC manufacturer, a company whose Silicon Valley history predates the personal computer itself, is effectively saying there isn't enough upside to bother staying in the game.
"The increasing momentum of the media tablet market, led by the iPad, is creating a difficult environment for the PC industry," said Matthew Wilkins, principal analyst at research firm IHS iSuppli, in a recent report.
Second, even companies trying to embrace the post-PC world are struggling to get their arms around it as Apple crowds them out. A year and a half after the Cupertino company introduced its breakthrough iPad, not a single serious rival has emerged. The industry blog All Things D reported this week that Best Buy has sold only 25,000 HP TouchPads, less than 10 percent of the supply sitting in warehouses. That compares with more than 9 million iPads sold in the last quarter.
It seems even heavyweight contenders like HP can drop big dollars without making so much as a dent.

Consumer impact

For consumers, these trends are a mixed bag. They'll likely see falling prices for PCs, but it means yet another business has failed to gain strength in mobile computing. Less competition invariably means fewer options in the market and more pricing power for leaders like Apple.
On a conference call Thursday, HP Chief Financial Officer Cathie Lesjack said the company decided to exit the tablet business due to weak sales and suggested it had no plans to try again.
"With such a young ecosystem and poorly received hardware, we were unable to achieve our target," she said.
It's hard to see HP's retreat as anything less than a validation of the post-PC vision articulated by Apple CEO Steve Jobs.
"A lot of folks in this tablet market are rushing in and they're looking at this as the next PC," Jobs was quoted as saying at the unveiling of the iPad 2 in March. "The hardware and the software are done by different companies. And they're talking about speeds and feeds just like they did with PCs.
"And our experience and every bone in our body says that that is not the right approach to this. That these are post-PC devices that need to be even easier to use than a PC. That need to be even more intuitive than a PC. And where the software and the hardware and the applications need to intertwine in an even more seamless way than they do on a PC."
Jobs' words ring even more true in light of Google's announcement on Monday that it plans to buy Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion in what would be by far its largest acquisition.